Can an injury that did not get treated properly ever be healed? will it ever set right? i am very concerned about my son's arm. he had an injury at 3 and when i took him to the doctor's they would say that they would not see any thing. he is 12 now and ne

There : There are a lot of details missing and i'm not sure how the spine relates to his arm. What was the nature of the injury? What bones were involved? Does he have another musculoskeletal condition, such as scoliosis (which is a boy needs further evaluation)? Does he have good function in the arm? Without an underlying bone disease, bones can be cut and reset to decrease deformity. The answer often is not "can we?" but "should we?" many people get concerned about deformities around the elbow that have no effect on function. I remember a patient who insisted on having it corrected going through a series of operations for poor healing (nonunion) and infection. In the end, it did him no benefit. Have it evaluated, but think very carefully about what your goals are before deciding on treatment. If it will just "look better" then skip it!

As : As i started to say in the comment, you need to clarify for us what the injury was. Was it an elbow injury and now the arm looks crooked through the elbow? Was it a shoulder or neck problem that affected the nerves to the hand and forearm? Certainly you should get him seen. A good start shoudl be with the doctor who prescribed the back brace. If they are an orthopedist who treats kids or a rehab doctor. Though most kids spine and back problems related to the lumbar or thoracic spine and the nerves to the arm are not affected by those regions there are certainly congenital arm or had issues that are associated with spine problems.

As : As both drs. Wood and wint suggest, more detail is needed to properly advise. Having said that, drs. Wood underscores a valuable principle in orthopedics, that for the most part function trumps appearance in terms of decision making. One other thing, while I have no idea what sort of care he received, i would just caution that the fact that he got what you suggest is a "bad" result, doesn't mean that he "did not get treated properly". Maybe yes, maybe no. Sometimes results are less than desireable even with "proper treatment" you don't mention what the concern about your son's arm is or what you mean by "saving" it so hard to say much more.