Patients evaluate the outcome of shoulder arthroplasty in terms of their postoperative shoulder comfort and function, i.e. what are they able to do after the procedure.
There is now a growing trend to evaluate specific shoulder functions after shoulder arthroplasty, so that data on specific activities performable after surgery can be shared with prospective patients.
Functional aspirations obviously differ among patients. Some want to be able to return to their work, others want to be able to throw a ball with their children or grandchildren, and others simply want to regain their ability to sleep comfortably. See, for example, Improvement in Sleep Disturbance Following Anatomic and Reverse Shoulder Arthroplasty
Recognizing that different individual functions are not of equal value to different patients, the Simple Shoulder Test evaluates the outcomes for twelve different functions previously identified as being of importance to patients having shoulder arthroplasty.
Below are three papers that report patients' ability to perform these 12 individual functions before and after different types of shoulder arthroplasty.
The authors of What Activities Do Patients Hope to Perform Following Reverse Shoulder Arthroplasty But Are Unable To? Looking Beyond Patient-Reported Outcome Measures used a somewhat different approach in their survey of 142 patients at least two years (average 4.3 years) after reverse total shoulder arthroplasty. A large majority reported little-to-no difficulty with driving a car (90%), managing toileting (84%), putting on a seatbelt (82%), and washing hair (81%). However only 59% percent reported being able to reach shelves at home with minimal difficulty. Furthermore, when asked in a free text questionnaire which activities they wanted to perform, but felt unable to, patients most commonly self-identified tennis (15%), swimming (11%), throwing a ball (11%), golf (10%), and lifting weights or exercising the arm (10%).
Comment: Patients considering shoulder arthroplasty want to know what their function is likely to be after shoulder joint replacement. Surgeons may wish to inform prospective patients regarding the functions patients can perform after the different types of shoulder arthroplasty used in their practice.
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Here are some videos that are of shoulder interest
Shoulder arthritis - what you need to know (see this link).
How to x-ray the shoulder (see this link).
The ream and run procedure (see this link).
The total shoulder arthroplasty (see this link).
The cuff tear arthropathy arthroplasty (see this link).
The reverse total shoulder arthroplasty (see this link).
The smooth and move procedure for irreparable rotator cuff tears (see this link).
Shoulder rehabilitation exercises (see this link).
