Acute Peripheral Nerve Injuries

Peripheral nerve injuries can severely impact a patients’ quality of life. Understanding the various degrees of nerve injury will assist the surgeon in treating these injuries. As the ability to diagnose nerve injuries continues to improve, so too does the treatment. Advancements in our understanding of nerve regeneration, intraneural topography, improvement in microsurgical technique, and timing of intervention have informed our current approaches to nerve injuries. In this chapter, we review assessing nerve injury, determining timing for intervention, principles of nerve repair, and current nerve repair and grafting management and techniques.