For Shoulder Dislocations, Surgery Might Help

Surgery for first-time shoulder dislocations could benefit young athletes

(RxWiki News) For young athletes who dislocate their shoulders for the first time, surgery might be a helpful option, a new study found.

Among young athletes, shoulder instability is a relatively common problem. According to this new study, surgery might be a good option to help prevent future shoulder dislocations.

This study looked at 121 patients, whose data was collected over 10 years at several surgical practices, around 51 months after they had had surgery. The average age was 19yrs.

Of these patients, sixty-eight patients had undergone surgery for their first shoulder dislocation, while the rest had undergone surgery for repeated shoulder dislocations after being treated without surgery after their first dislocation.

Twenty-nine percent of those who had had surgery for a first-time dislocation had another dislocation after surgery. For those patients who had not had surgery after their initial dislocation, that figure was 62 percent, these researchers found.

Talk to your doctor about the best way to treat injuries.

This study was presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting. 

Information on funding sources and conflicts of interest was not available at the time of publication.

 

Review Date: 
July 10, 2016