I am writing this post after having met one of my patient who is recently been operated for malunion of Ulna in forearm. Patient had complex both bone fractures in the past and was operated to fix them at multiple location. But when the rehabilitation phase started, the problems were more apparent, patient lost most of supination, but with some pronation.
This is is tricky because when you lose supination your upper limb cannont compensate because your body comes in way and prevent you to do all activities that require supination like doing clock wise motion of your hand(like putting a screws) and so on. If the loss of supination in forearm is acompinied by loss of flexion and extension at wrist, you have more disability. On the other hand if you loose your pronation, you can easily compensate by doning trick movements like abducting your shoulder instead of moving at forearm. People can cope really well folllowing loss of pronation compared to those people who lost supination.
Also do you know what muscle is strong supinator – it is famour Biceps. Biceps is famous in lay people mind as bulk arm muscle doing flexion. But it is more important as supinator, than as flexor of the elbow.
