What activities are recommended after a total shoulder replacement?

Most individuals considering a total shoulder joint replacement are interested in the activities recommended after this procedure. While there is no perfect answer to this question, a recent article, Long-term activity restrictions after shoulder arthroplasty: an international survey of experienced shoulder surgeons, reported a survey of 99 experienced shoulder surgeons to learn what activities they recommended after a total shoulder replacement.

I have summarized the results of this survey below. The first group of activities were recommended by more than half of the surgeons.

Activity	Percent of surgeons recommending
Walking	95
Stationary bike	91
Ballroom dancing	87
Jogging/running	86
Swimming	82
Low impact aerobics	78
Stiar climber	77
Hiking	77
Road cycling	75
Golf	75
Table Tennis	71
Pilates	66
Elliptical	62
Bowling	57
Cross country skiing	53

The second group were recommended by less than half of the surgeons.

Activity	Percent of surgeons recommending
Doubles tennis	48
Sprinting	46
Rowing	45
Fencing	41
Rollerblading	38
Ice skating	37
Downhill skiing	36
High impact aerobics	33
Singles tennis	33
Soccer	29
Baseball/softball	24
Racquetball	22
Basketball	22
Team handball	20
Snowboarding	18
Volleyball	18
Throwing	18
Lacrosse	16
Weight lifting	14
Waterskiing	13
Martial arts	11
American football	5

The reasons that surgeons restrict activities after a total shoulder replacement were not analyzed in this study. We can surmise that one reason may be concern about failure of the polyethylene glenoid component.

It was this concern that leads us to discuss the possibility of a ream and run procedure with individuals who wish to avoid the risk of glenoid component failure.

--

Use the "Search the Blog" box to the right to find other topics of interest to you.

You may be interested in some of our most visited web pages including: shoulder arthritis, total shoulder, ream and run, reverse total shoulder, CTA arthroplasty, and rotator cuff surgery.

See the countries from which our readers come on this post.