ABSTRACT
History A 76-year-old woman is brought to the emergency department having fallen on some ice. She remembers slipping over and stretching out her right hand in order to ‘save her fall’. She describes signicant pain around her right wrist. Fortunately, her only other injury is a minor graze on her forehead. She says she has previously had a heart attack in her 60s. She takes atenolol, ramipril, simvastatin and aspirin. She also has a history of essential hypertension and she had a hysterectomy for menorrhagia when she was 40 years old. She is the sole caregiver for her husband who suered a stoke 2 years ago and is bed-bound. She is anxious to get back home to look aer him.
