A plate seemed an obvious device to provide an artificial shaft for the alignment of two displaced bone fragments. Also intuitive was the idea of assuring the assembly of the plate and the bone segments by transfixing screws. The treatment of a vast number of fractures relies on this concept but, sometimes, plate fixation may be too rigid and may impair the natural process of bone remodelling (Fig. 13.22). This is a process where bone is deposited in proportion to the compressional load that it must carry and trabeculae follow the lines of stress and can realign if the direction of stress changes (Wolff's law). Without proper loading, bone rarefaction occurs; a too rigid plate–bone assembly may ‘shield the stress’ from the bone and lead to bone rarefaction beneath the plate (Laftman et al., 1989).