A shoulder to rely on
IT’S not exactly how you want to spend your day off, but total shoulder replacement surgery beats knee and hip replacement hands down.
A new report finds that shoulder replacement is no more dangerous than knee or hip replacement surgery. It also has half as many complications and is less expensive than the other two procedures.
The study, published in the February issue of the journal Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, reviewed more than 50,000 patients who received joint replacement surgery for osteoarthritis between 1994 and 2001, including 994 shoulder arthroplasties. The researchers found that the shoulder replacement patients spent about two days less in the hospital and had lower hospital bills -- $10,351 on average versus $15,442 for hip replacement and $14,674 for the knee.
“Shoulder replacement for some reason has had a bad reputation,” says lead author Dr. Edward McFarland, co-director of the division of shoulder surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. “But the longevity of shoulder replacement is as good or better than total knees, total hips.”
McFarland says that most patients who undergo the operation “get a tremendous improvement in their quality of life, improvement in pain and in range of motion.”
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