Different kinds of Shoulder surgeries

A shoulder injury can be painful and may be due to a sports injury or due to an accident. The same may require urgent and immediate medical attention. Ignoring a sports injury can complicate your life and may make you move towards disability. If you are not able to move your hands-free and have restricted movement, it is best advised that you consult a specialist – an Orthopedician – immediately.

Types of Shoulder Injuries:

• Arthroscopic debridement

This procedure is most suitable for the patients who have a history of chronic shoulder pain but have no tear and have failed other treatments such as physical; therapy, injections and oral pain medications. It comprises 2 or 3 small poke holes around the shoulder and then removal of an inflamed or irritated tissue, scar tissues or bone spurs which may be possibly impinging on the healthy tissue. During the procedure, we also remove the debris from inside a joint which may cause pain.

• Arthroscopic bankart procedure or Labral repair/ Shoulder stabilization

A shoulder joint is a socket and ball joint. By Natural design, it is very shallow a joint for allowing a very high scale of motion. While this allows us to put our hands where we need, it also lends itself to making a shoulder less stable. For making shoulder s more stable our body has a soft tissue known as a bumper which surrounds the bony part of our shoulders’ sockets. This operates for deepening the socket and thus making it tough to dislocate. Unfortunately, if we dislocate our shoulder, the labrum & lining of shoulder joints or capsule are usually torn away from the bone.

If one dislocates his shoulder and has continuous pain, the arthroscopic Bankart repair could be highly successful in getting them back to activities they enjoy. The procedure involves placement of small absorbable anchors into the bone of shoulder sockets. The anchors are then attached to a thread which is looped around capsule and labrum & tied with special instruments. This gives compression of tissue back to bone & allows recovery.

• Rotator Cuff Repair

Rotator Cuff tears are common with aging. They could be relevant to some injury like a fall, or sudden movement with a jerk. However, they could also take place with no recognized cause. The rotator cuff is the tendon attachment of 4 small muscles to the upper part of an arm bone or the humerus. When functioning, the muscles assist in holding the balls in the sockets thus allowing stronger shoulder muscles, the deltoid for elevating our arms. If the rotator cuff does not work because of a tear like if the upper extreme of arm bone moves up and hit the roof of shoulder resulting in impingement and making it tough if not impossible for us in lifting our arms above our heads. In extreme case, one may not even be capable of shaking somebody’s hand.

Pain is usually felt across lateral portion of the shoulder in the area of deltoid muscle. Diagnosis shall be confirmed with MRI. For patients needing rotator cuff repair, we prefer using minimally invasive arthroscopic techniques with the specially designed instruments for performing a repair though smaller incision. Similar to labral repair, small anchors with thread are placed in bone & tissue is tied back down to the bone.