In medicine, the Ottawa ankle rules are a set of guidelines for clinicians to aid them in deciding if a patient with foot or ankle pain should be offered X-rays to diagnose a possible bone fracture. Before the introduction of the rules most patients with ankle injuries would have been X-rayed. However only about 15% of X-rays were positive for fracture, other patients had sprains or other injuries. As a result many unnecessary X-rays were taken, which was costly, time consuming and a possible health risk.
Read more about Ottawa Ankle Rules: The Ottawa Ankle Rules, Utility of The Ottawa Rules, Generalization To Other Joints, History
Famous quotes containing the words ankle and/or rules:
“You with the goo on the suction cup.
You with your wires and electrodes
fastened at my ankle and wrist,
sucking up the biological breast.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Under the rules of a society that cannot distinguish between profit and profiteering, between money defined as necessity and money defined as luxury, murder is occasionally obligatory and always permissible.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)