Sometimes when a scaphoid bone breaks and loses its blood flow, it undergoes a process called avascular necrosis. This may cause the bone to crumble, and the wrist joint may be destroyed. When a scaphoid fracture fails to heal, the patient may initially get better for a while until the pieces of broken bone, which are loose inside the wrist joint, cause a deterioration of the wrist joint called traumatic arthritis. In this condition, the joint becomes painful and stiff, decreases grip strength and limits a person's ability to carry out even moderate activities. The time required for the arthritis to develop is variable depending upon how heavily the wrist is being used.
Traumatic arthritis is different from rheumatoid or osteoarthritis.
This process only occurs in the injured joint and does not spread to other joints if the body. Since it takes such a violent injury to fracture the scaphoid bone, additional injuries to the surrounding ligaments of the wrist often occur along with a scaphoid fracture. When this happens, it is much more difficult to obtain healing of the scaphoid in just a cast. If the wrist is not stabilized surgically, collapse of the wrist bones occurs causing deterioration and permanent stiffness of the wrist joint. It means that the bone has failed to heal.