Most people are back to light everyday use 6 to 8 weeks after wrist plate surgery and to heavy lifting and sport at 3 to 6 months. Move early, load late, plus the thumb tendon check to do weekly for a year.
Most people are back at a desk 1 to 2 weeks after scaphoid surgery and back to heavy work or contact sport at 3 to 6 months, once a CT scan confirms the bone has healed. Here’s the week-by-week timeline, exercises and red flags.
A PIP fracture-dislocation takes 6 to 12 weeks to heal, usually with 4 to 6 weeks in an extension block splint, and needs surgery if the joint won’t stay lined up. It only shows on a true side-on X-ray of that one finger.
A Bennett’s or Rolando fracture needs 6 to 12 weeks to heal and at least 6 to 8 weeks in a cast or thumb spica splint. Most need surgery, and pinch strength is the last thing to come back.
A crushed fingertip’s bone usually heals in 3 to 4 weeks with a small splint. The nail decides the long-term result: drain a throbbing black nail early, and get a split, lifted or missing nail checked the same day for nail bed repair.
A broken finger usually takes 6 to 12 weeks to heal, with 3 to 6 weeks of protection in buddy tape or a splint. Before any of that, make a loose fist: a finger that crosses its neighbor means the bone is rotated.
An olecranon fracture takes about 6 to 12 weeks for the bone to heal and 3 to 6 months for full strength. Whether you can straighten your elbow against gravity decides splint or surgery.
Most radial head fractures heal in about 6 to 8 weeks without surgery, with the sling off within days. What decides treatment is whether the fragment blocks rotation; what decides your outcome is how early you move it.
Adult forearm fractures are usually plated and take 3 to 4 months to heal, with most people back to heavy work and sport at 4 to 6 months. Rotation is the movement to chase, and a single-bone fracture means both the elbow and wrist need checking.
A hook of hamate fracture causes deep heel-of-palm pain on the little-finger side after a golf, bat or racquet impact, and routine X-rays often miss it. A CT settles it; most late-found cases do well with removal of the hook and a return to sport around 6 to 8 weeks.