Shoulder Replacement

Shoulder replacements are one of the options for management of arthritis of the shoulder.

Non-surgical management is often attempted first with a combination of physiotherapy to maintain a range of movement and pain management strategies (including injections) to help with the pain.

These injections may be into the shoulder or to block the nerves to the shoulder (supra-scapula nerve block)

Rotator Cuff tears and arthritis.

The rotator cuff tendons act together to hold the ball and socket of the shoulder together

Often there are rotator cuff tears in association with arthritis.

If there is a tear then the function of the cuff tendons needs to be replicated as part of the replacement.

This requires the alteration of the biomechanics of the shoulder by using a ‘reverse polarity’ design.

In this circumstance the socket of the shoulder is replaced with a ball and the ball of the shoulder is replaced with a cup.