Flexor Tendon Injuries

The muscles responsible for flexing your fingers originate at your elbow; these muscles “turn into” tendons in the forearm and pass through pulleys in your hand and digits before attaching to the finger bones.  Lacerations of the palm side of your wrist, hand, or digits can result in laceration of your flexor tendons, which in turn results in inability to bend certain joints in your fingers.

Flexor tendon lacerations will not heal on their own; they need to be repaired surgically.  Within your finger, tendon repairs can scar and may cause stiffness or loss of motion.  Following tendon repair, your likely will need a lot of hand therapy including splinting to regain motion and protect the repairs.  Still, people rarely get all of their motion back after this injury.

This patient had a cut (laceration) on the palmar aspect of the ring finger.  Notice how the finger isn’t flexed (or bent) in the natural position like the others.  This is a clue that the flexor tendon has been cut.  Even simple punctures to the palm surface of the finger can result in tendon damage!