Shoulder Replacement Surgery

Shoulder arthritis often shows itself at night. No position stops the ache, and lying on the bad side is out of the question. By day, reaching a kitchen shelf, fastening a blouse or combing your hair turns into a two-handed job.

In shoulder replacement surgery (shoulder arthroplasty), the worn surfaces of the joint are replaced with smooth artificial parts. The ball sits at the top of the upper arm bone (humerus), and the shallow socket, the glenoid, belongs to the shoulder blade. Which replacement you get depends mostly on the rotator cuff, the ring of tendons that holds the ball in place and helps lift the arm. If the cuff is healthy, the new parts copy your natural anatomy. If it's badly torn, a reverse design swaps the ball and socket around so the big deltoid muscle can do the lifting.

Pain relief is the most reliable result, usually within a few weeks. Movement returns more slowly, and how high you can eventually lift the arm depends on the type of replacement and the state of your muscles.

At Prakash Hospital, shoulder arthritis is treated with medicines, injections and physiotherapy first, and our orthopaedics team moves to replacement once those stop working. Rehab afterwards is run by our physiotherapy department, which regularly treats rotator cuff and frozen shoulder problems.

Most people have been through months of physiotherapy, medicines and injections before replacement comes up. For some fractures in older people, it's the first choice.

Shoulders recover more slowly than hips or knees, because the tendons must heal before they're asked to lift. Pain usually settles well before movement and strength return.