Dislocated Elbow Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment

Written by WebMD Editorial Contributors

Medically Reviewed by Poonam Sachdev on April 12, 2023

• Elbow Dislocation Overview
• Elbow Dislocation Causes
• Elbow Dislocation Symptoms
• When to Seek Medical Care for Elbow Injuries
• Exams and Tests for Elbow Dislocation
• Elbow Dislocation Treatment and Self-Care at Home
• Different Types of Elbow Injuries
• Next Steps for a Dislocated Elbow
• Dislocated Elbow Recovery Time
• Prevention of Elbow Dislocation
• Outlook for Elbow Dislocation
• Elbow Dislocation in Children
• More

An elbow dislocation happens when the bones of the forearm (the radius and ulna) move out of place, compared with the bone of the upper arm (the humerus). The elbow joint, formed where these 3 bones meet, becomes dislocated, or out of joint.

Specific, serious injuries that may occur are fractures (breaking of the bones in the arm), injuries to the arteries in the arm (the vessels carrying blood to the hand), and injuries to the nerves that run through the elbow area, impairing movement and feeling in the arm and hand.

The cause of most elbow dislocations is usually a fall, most commonly with the arm all the way out. But any traumatic injury (such as a car crash) can result in an elbow dislocation.

Severe pain in the elbow, swelling, and not being able to bend your arm are all signs of an elbow dislocation.

In some cases, you may lose feeling in your hand or no longer have a pulse (can’t feel your heartbeat in your wrist). Arteries and nerves run by your elbow, so it is possible you might have injured them during the dislocation.

You should go to the doctor’s office or hospital’s emergency department right away if you can’t move your elbow, have severe pain, can’t feel your hand, or have no pulse in your wrist.

The doctor will begin with an examination.

• The doctor will make sure your nerves and arteries are unhurt by checking your pulse, making sure you can feel normally, moving your fingers and wrist, and making sure that blood is flowing normally to your hand.
• Next, the doctor will get X-rays. Sometimes, breaks in the bone can look like dislocations, and some breaks happen when dislocations happen.
• If the doctor suspects an injury to your artery, further tests, such as an arteriogram (an X-ray of your artery) may be done. Sometimes, an MRI or CT scan may be needed. 

An elbow dislocation is a serious injury that needs medical care. At home, put ice on the elbow. This will help with the pain and will reduce some of the swelling. But the most important thing to do is to see a doctor.

It is best for a doctor to examine this injury, but at home, you can also check for a few signs that will show if the artery in the arm and the nerves are intact.

• To check on the artery, feel below your thumb at the base of your wrist. You should be able to feel your pulse. Press on the tips of your fingers. They should blanch (turn white) and then return to a normal pink color within 3 seconds. If either of these tests is abnormal, seek medical care right away.
• Three nerves run by the elbow. Each nerve has portions that help with strength and feeling. First, check for strength by bending your wrist up as if you were saying “Stop” (radial nerve function), then spread your fingers apart (ulnar nerve function), then try to touch your thumb to your little finger (median nerve function). If you have trouble with any of these tests, see a doctor right away.
• Check for feeling by touching all over your hand and arm. If any feeling of numbness results, see a doctor right away.

There are three basic kinds of elbow dislocation:

• A simple one doesn’t involve a major bone injury.
• A complex one does have broken bones. You might need surgery to fix it.
• A severe dislocation involves injured blood vessels and nerves. 

With a complex dislocation, surgery to repair the damage may lead to bone growth in the soft tissue in your elbow. If this happens to you, your doctor may call it “heterotopic ossification. ”

The doctor will reduce (put back in place) your elbow by pulling down on your wrist and levering your elbow back into place. This is very painful, so powerful medications for pain may be given before reduction.

After your elbow is back in place, the doctor will get X-rays and then put you in a splint that will keep your elbow bent. The splint will make an “L” around the back of your elbow. It will be made of plaster or fiberglass. Its purpose is to prevent movement of your arm at the elbow. Usually, your arm will be placed in a sling to help you hold up your splint.

After you are sent home from the doctor’s office, you will be told to follow up with a bone doctor (orthopedist).

Wear your splint. Do not move your elbow. Elevate your elbow as much as possible, and ice it to ease swelling.

Complex dislocations that need surgery are tougher. Sometimes it’s better to delay the operation. This gives the swelling time to go down. It may be best to rest your elbow in a brace or splint for about a week before surgery.

Your physical therapist will create a rehab program just for you. Here’s what a basic post-op routine might look like:

• 1-4 weeks: Keep your elbow raised. Use ice to ease swelling. Use a splint when you’re still, but you will do some range-of-motion exercises. Your physical therapist may massage the area – they might call this soft-tissue mobilization.
• 5-8 weeks: You’ll add exercises with and without weights to your range-of-motion routines. If you’re an athlete, you’ll work in some sport-specific activities, too. And you’ll continue the soft-tissue treatments.
• 9-16 weeks: By now, you’ll have full range of motion and normal strength in your elbow. You should be back to doing what you did before the injury.

Do not fall on your outstretched arm. Avoid situations that would make falls more common (such as walking at night or being around slippery floors. Overtraining in sports, especially ones that involve throwing, can also lead to dislocation.  

Generally, this injury heals well. After watching closely for 3-5 days, the bone doctor will have you begin gentle movement exercises of your elbow. Usually, recovery happens without any lasting effects.

You may be more likely to take your kid in for this kind of injury than to get one yourself. There’s a type of partial dislocation called nursemaid’s elbow, or pulled elbow, and it’s common in tots 4 and younger.

It usually happens when you pull children by their hands. Their ligaments are loose because their bones aren’t fully formed. It’s easy for them to slip right over the radial head – the thing that helps them flex and bend their elbow and forearm – or get trapped in the elbow joint.

It happened to Bethany Afshar’s daughter Katie twice. The first time was when she was almost 2 and ran behind her big brother into a swimming pool. Her father quickly pulled her out of the pool by her left arm.

“Later, we noticed that she couldn’t pick up a pacifier with that arm and took her to urgent care,” says Afshar, who lives in Georgia. “They gave her a Popsicle, lifted her arm and twisted it real quickly back into place, just like that.”

Katie got the same treatment after it happened again in preschool a year or two later, “probably on the jungle gym,” Afshar says. Katie is 9 now, and it hasn’t happened since. The risk drops as kids get older – their ligaments tighten and their bones grow.

“Nursemaid’s elbow is one of my favorite diagnoses, because it’s so fixable in the moment,” says Kate Cronan, MD, an emergency room physician at Alfred I. DuPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, DE. “It’s rare that we can fix something that easily and make a child feel all better that quickly.”

Top Picks

Dislocated Elbow Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment

Written by WebMD Editorial Contributors

Medically Reviewed by Poonam Sachdev on April 12, 2023

• Elbow Dislocation Overview
• Elbow Dislocation Causes
• Elbow Dislocation Symptoms
• When to Seek Medical Care for Elbow Injuries
• Exams and Tests for Elbow Dislocation
• Elbow Dislocation Treatment and Self-Care at Home
• Different Types of Elbow Injuries
• Next Steps for a Dislocated Elbow
• Dislocated Elbow Recovery Time
• Prevention of Elbow Dislocation
• Outlook for Elbow Dislocation
• Elbow Dislocation in Children
• More

An elbow dislocation happens when the bones of the forearm (the radius and ulna) move out of place, compared with the bone of the upper arm (the humerus). The elbow joint, formed where these 3 bones meet, becomes dislocated, or out of joint.

Specific, serious injuries that may occur are fractures (breaking of the bones in the arm), injuries to the arteries in the arm (the vessels carrying blood to the hand), and injuries to the nerves that run through the elbow area, impairing movement and feeling in the arm and hand.

The cause of most elbow dislocations is usually a fall, most commonly with the arm all the way out. But any traumatic injury (such as a car crash) can result in an elbow dislocation.

Severe pain in the elbow, swelling, and not being able to bend your arm are all signs of an elbow dislocation.

In some cases, you may lose feeling in your hand or no longer have a pulse (can’t feel your heartbeat in your wrist). Arteries and nerves run by your elbow, so it is possible you might have injured them during the dislocation.

You should go to the doctor’s office or hospital’s emergency department right away if you can’t move your elbow, have severe pain, can’t feel your hand, or have no pulse in your wrist.

The doctor will begin with an examination.

• The doctor will make sure your nerves and arteries are unhurt by checking your pulse, making sure you can feel normally, moving your fingers and wrist, and making sure that blood is flowing normally to your hand.
• Next, the doctor will get X-rays. Sometimes, breaks in the bone can look like dislocations, and some breaks happen when dislocations happen.
• If the doctor suspects an injury to your artery, further tests, such as an arteriogram (an X-ray of your artery) may be done. Sometimes, an MRI or CT scan may be needed. 

An elbow dislocation is a serious injury that needs medical care. At home, put ice on the elbow. This will help with the pain and will reduce some of the swelling. But the most important thing to do is to see a doctor.

It is best for a doctor to examine this injury, but at home, you can also check for a few signs that will show if the artery in the arm and the nerves are intact.

• To check on the artery, feel below your thumb at the base of your wrist. You should be able to feel your pulse. Press on the tips of your fingers. They should blanch (turn white) and then return to a normal pink color within 3 seconds. If either of these tests is abnormal, seek medical care right away.
• Three nerves run by the elbow. Each nerve has portions that help with strength and feeling. First, check for strength by bending your wrist up as if you were saying “Stop” (radial nerve function), then spread your fingers apart (ulnar nerve function), then try to touch your thumb to your little finger (median nerve function). If you have trouble with any of these tests, see a doctor right away.
• Check for feeling by touching all over your hand and arm. If any feeling of numbness results, see a doctor right away.

There are three basic kinds of elbow dislocation:

• A simple one doesn’t involve a major bone injury.
• A complex one does have broken bones. You might need surgery to fix it.
• A severe dislocation involves injured blood vessels and nerves. 

With a complex dislocation, surgery to repair the damage may lead to bone growth in the soft tissue in your elbow. If this happens to you, your doctor may call it “heterotopic ossification.”

The doctor will reduce (put back in place) your elbow by pulling down on your wrist and levering your elbow back into place. This is very painful, so powerful medications for pain may be given before reduction.

After your elbow is back in place, the doctor will get X-rays and then put you in a splint that will keep your elbow bent. The splint will make an “L” around the back of your elbow. It will be made of plaster or fiberglass. Its purpose is to prevent movement of your arm at the elbow. Usually, your arm will be placed in a sling to help you hold up your splint.

After you are sent home from the doctor’s office, you will be told to follow up with a bone doctor (orthopedist).

Wear your splint. Do not move your elbow. Elevate your elbow as much as possible, and ice it to ease swelling.

Complex dislocations that need surgery are tougher. Sometimes it’s better to delay the operation. This gives the swelling time to go down. It may be best to rest your elbow in a brace or splint for about a week before surgery.

Your physical therapist will create a rehab program just for you. Here’s what a basic post-op routine might look like:

• 1-4 weeks: Keep your elbow raised. Use ice to ease swelling. Use a splint when you’re still, but you will do some range-of-motion exercises. Your physical therapist may massage the area – they might call this soft-tissue mobilization.
• 5-8 weeks: You’ll add exercises with and without weights to your range-of-motion routines. If you’re an athlete, you’ll work in some sport-specific activities, too. And you’ll continue the soft-tissue treatments.
• 9-16 weeks: By now, you’ll have full range of motion and normal strength in your elbow. You should be back to doing what you did before the injury.

Do not fall on your outstretched arm. Avoid situations that would make falls more common (such as walking at night or being around slippery floors. Overtraining in sports, especially ones that involve throwing, can also lead to dislocation. 

Generally, this injury heals well. After watching closely for 3-5 days, the bone doctor will have you begin gentle movement exercises of your elbow. Usually, recovery happens without any lasting effects.

You may be more likely to take your kid in for this kind of injury than to get one yourself. There’s a type of partial dislocation called nursemaid’s elbow, or pulled elbow, and it’s common in tots 4 and younger.

It usually happens when you pull children by their hands. Their ligaments are loose because their bones aren’t fully formed. It’s easy for them to slip right over the radial head – the thing that helps them flex and bend their elbow and forearm – or get trapped in the elbow joint.

It happened to Bethany Afshar’s daughter Katie twice. The first time was when she was almost 2 and ran behind her big brother into a swimming pool. Her father quickly pulled her out of the pool by her left arm.

“Later, we noticed that she couldn’t pick up a pacifier with that arm and took her to urgent care,” says Afshar, who lives in Georgia. “They gave her a Popsicle, lifted her arm and twisted it real quickly back into place, just like that.”

Katie got the same treatment after it happened again in preschool a year or two later, “probably on the jungle gym,” Afshar says. Katie is 9 now, and it hasn’t happened since. The risk drops as kids get older – their ligaments tighten and their bones grow.

“Nursemaid’s elbow is one of my favorite diagnoses, because it’s so fixable in the moment,” says Kate Cronan, MD, an emergency room physician at Alfred I. DuPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, DE. “It’s rare that we can fix something that easily and make a child feel all better that quickly. ”

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causes and recovery – articles of the clinic “In safe hands”

Many people in their life faced with various dislocations of the joints. Injury can occur at work, on vacation, during training. Elbow dislocation is one of the most common injuries of the upper extremities.

As a result of injury – severe pain, swelling and deformity in the elbow joint. This disease requires mandatory consultation of traumatologists and further treatment.

There are three types of elbow dislocation:

• Against the background of arthritis or arthrosis and weakening of the ligaments and muscles, changes and destruction of the bones of the joint occur.
• A dislocation of the ulna is the result of displacement of the articular end of one of the bones due to direct impact on the elbow.
• The mechanism of injury is indirect pressure on the joint when a force is applied to the humerus or radius, resulting in a leverage.

The second option is considered the most common case of dislocation of the ulna and radius.

Causes of a dislocated elbow

• Getting hit. During serious physical exertion, in an accident or a fight, a person can get such an injury. And dislocation can also occur when hitting patients on a hard surface.
• Drop . The falling person intuitively puts his hands forward to soften the fall. The brush has a high load. The injury is influenced by the angle at which a person exposes the upper limbs, his body weight and the speed of the fall.
• A sharp jerk. Dislocation of the elbow joint with displacement can occur if a person is strongly pulled by the arm. Typically, such an injury can occur during judo or sambo training.
• Injury at work. A person usually receives such injuries at work associated with heavy physical labor. Representatives of working professions are most often injured during work.

Symptoms of elbow dislocation:

With a dislocation of the elbow, the following signs are considered characteristic symptoms:

• Changing the shape of the joint. Outwardly, it will be noticeable that the elbow does not look the same as before.
• Severe pain. The patient may feel severe pain in the elbow area, and when trying to move the arm, the movements will be difficult and painful. At rest, the patient will not feel relief. Pain can cover the shoulder and forearm.
• Limited movement. In a patient with a dislocated elbow, there is partial or even complete limitation when trying to move and move the arm. If, nevertheless, efforts were made to bend the arm, this ends with a sharp pain in the affected area.
• Puffiness. The elbow area is swollen and the swelling does not subside immediately after reduction, the swelling subsides gradually.
• Colour. Due to inflammation, the skin at the site of dislocation and throughout the limb becomes red or purple.
• Reduced sensitivity. This type of injury can lead to numbness in the hand.
• Spasms. Due to damage to blood vessels, ligaments and muscles, spasms often appear in the injured arm.
• Deterioration of health. Due to the injury, the patient will experience general malaise, expressed in fever, heat or chills. The pulse may be rapid or, conversely, slow.

Elbow dislocation diagnostics

A traumatologist, before determining the method of treatment, must conduct a thorough diagnosis in order to distinguish the problem from others. For example, from a closed fracture or elbow bursitis.

First of all, the doctor collects an anamnesis, finds out what preceded the injury, then conducts a thorough examination and palpation, determines the sensitivity in the damaged limb.

Patients may be referred for the following tests:

• x-ray;
• Vascular ultrasound;
• general blood and urine tests;
• biopsy of the intra-articular substance.

Additionally, tests are taken to identify concomitant chronic pathologies, which will determine the method of treatment.

Elbow dislocation reduction

The traumatologist, after collecting an anamnesis, will most likely resort to repositioning the joint. Before this, the patient is shown taking painkillers, it is possible to block the joint with anesthetics, muscle relaxants should also be injected intramuscularly, aimed at relaxing the muscle fibers. Only a professional should set the affected joint.

Depending on the degree and type of damage, the doctor will choose a specific method of reduction.

Further, to alleviate the patient’s condition, high-quality immobilization is required for 2 weeks. In a dislocated elbow in a child whose symptoms are much brighter, the correct elimination of any movement in the joint will lead to a quick recovery.

During the treatment period, the patient needs to take medications:

• painkillers;
• anti-inflammatory;
• muscle relaxants;
• angioprotectors;
• vitamin complexes.

The expediency of therapy of certain drug groups and the course of treatment is chosen by the traumatologist depending on the age characteristics of the patient, the complexity of the injury.

Dislocation of the elbow joint – symptoms, first aid and treatment

A common injury in modern medical practice is a dislocation of the elbow joint. Such an unpleasant experience is common in both adults and children, and you can earn a dislocation of the elbow in familiar situations: at home, in transport, at work, etc.

The human elbow is formed by the humerus and ulna, united by the head of the radius, near which there are 3 ligaments: collateral, annular and radial collateral. A dislocation occurs as a result of a fall on an outstretched arm, a blow, and in other situations. It consists in the displacement of the bones that form the elbow.

Elbow dislocation requires specialist intervention, but each person should know what to do if a dislocation is suspected.

Characteristic symptoms of trauma

Signs of dislocation are quite typical and are checked by means of instrumental diagnostics. The appearance of symptoms of dislocation occurs in stages.

The appearance of pain

The pain in the elbow is constant and intense. If force is applied, this pain syndrome does not subside, as, for example, with hemarthrosis, bruising and other pathological conditions in traumatology.

Swelling of the elbow

At the same time, there is no redness on the victim’s arm, there is no increase in local temperature. This feature is key to recognizing an elbow joint injury.

There are also clinical situations that are due to the proximity of the elbow joint to the neurovascular bundle. A dislocation can lead to injury to the nerve endings, which is manifested in a decrease in the pulsation of the arteries located near the bones. This means that the blood flow through these arteries is stopped. If such symptoms occur, the victim should be hospitalized immediately, otherwise the dislocation of the elbow can lead to complications, which will provide long-term and painful treatment.

In a child, dislocation of the elbow is more difficult to determine, because the musculoskeletal system of children includes more soft tissues than in an adult. Due to the elasticity of the ligaments, dislocations are less common in children, but joint damage can be presented as a subluxation. With this type of injury, ligament rupture does not occur.

Any injury to the elbow should be treated by a professional traumatologist who can make an accurate diagnosis.

First Aid

If a dislocated elbow is suspected, ice should be applied to the injured elbow immediately after the onset of pain and swelling. Compresses should not be applied.

It is important to check if the nerve endings near the head of the radius are intact. To find out if the articular-nerve bundle is damaged, you should press the nails on the injured hand. If they first turned white, and then took on a natural pinkish tint, then the nerve bundle is not injured.

Another way to test the function of the radial nerve is to spread the fingers of the injured hand apart, bringing the little finger and thumb together.

Therapeutic measures

Only after receiving an image from the radiologist, further treatment, joint reduction or surgery can be carried out. Depending on the degree of injury to the shoulder joint, the attending physician prescribes conservative or surgical treatment.

The first stage is the reduction of the joint. To prevent the procedure from bringing pain to the patient, the doctor injects an anesthetic drug.

The procedure for reducing the elbow joint depends on whether the type of dislocation is present in the joint: anterior or posterior. With an anterior dislocation, the victim’s elbow is flexed as much as possible, while the joint is displaced backward. If the patient has a posterior dislocation of the elbow, then reduction occurs using a method that consists in stretching the joint.

Less common is the over-flexion of the joint, when the injured elbow is bent even more.

After the reduction procedure, the traumatologist performs bandaging with an elastic bandage, and also puts a splint on the forearm of the injured arm.

In some cases, a dislocated joint requires surgery. This occurs when, during an injury, the nerve endings located near the elbow were damaged, or a fracture of the coronoid process occurred.

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Rehabilitation and recovery

In case of any type of dislocation after standard therapy, the patient must undergo a long course of rehabilitation under the supervision of a doctor and nurses in order to avoid complications and dislocation of the elbow does not affect the mobility of the arm.

Rehabilitation begins from the moment the cast is applied to the injured arm and continues until the bandage is removed from the elbow. The main goal of this event is to restore the mobility of the elbow, tissues and muscles of the patient.

The patient is prescribed several types of procedures:

1. Physiotherapy. Physiotherapy treatment helps to normalize blood circulation in the elbow joint.
2. LFK. Therapeutic physical culture is extremely important for the recovery of the patient’s hand after an injury, because it is necessary to restore the mobility of the hand. Exercises to bend the fingers and hands of the injured hand help to develop the joint.
3. Massage. Massaging the muscles around a dislocated elbow can only be done by a traumatologist.

The rehabilitation period requires the patient to follow the principles of proper nutrition. Food should be healthy and complete. It is necessary to drink plenty of water – up to 2 liters per day.