Shoulder replacement is an excellent operation for many people with shoulder arthritis. Our Buffalo, NY based team is actively researching ways to make it better. Last week I was honored to accept the Charles Neer award from the American Shoulder and Elbow Society on behalf of our team at University at Buffalo/ UBMD Orthopedics and … Read more
The other day a patient asked me if he should exercise his shoulder before getting a shoulder replacement. A little background, the patient is about 60 years old and is an avid weight lifter. I was a little confused by the question so I asked him to clarify.
He thought that if he increased his shoulder and chest strength before surgery, this would make it easier for him to recover and for me to do the surgery.
I saw a patient recently that I have been treating for a few years. He originally sustained a very bad trauma – a gunshot wound to his dominant arm and was in his early 40’s at the time of the incident. His injury was so bad that it required a shoulder replacement as the ball portion of the joint could not be salvaged – it was totally shattered. He had some permanent damage to the bone and muscles around the shoulder which was not totally fixable.
This is one of the most frequent questions that I get from patients. And it’s not an easy one to answer.
Recently a team at The Hospital for Joint Diseases led by one of my shoulder fellowship mentors Dr. Laith Jazrawi produced a study that makes some recommendations about safe driving after labrum and rotator cuff repair surgery.
As a shoulder and elbow surgeon a lot of operations that I perform involve implanting hardware to help solve someone’s problem. Examples of hardware include plates and screws, joint replacement implants and arthroscopic anchors.
When someone asks whether hardware needs to be removed in the future they usually are referring to plates and screws that help hold fractures together.
Below is a typical case of severe arthritis in the ball and socket portion of the shoulder joint.
Arthritis is actually relatively uncommon in this joint. But when it occurs it tends to show a distinct pattern. The hallmark of arthritis at the ball and socket shoulder joint is joint space narrowing bone spurs at the bottom of the ball portion of the joint.
Walk through the pros and cons of shoulder replacement surgery with an experienced surgeon.
