Do non-surgical factors affect recovery after a rotator cuff repair? #AAOS #Health #Seattle

A recent paper - A prospective evaluation of predictors of pain after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair: psychosocial factors have a stronger association than structural factors set out to answer this question. 

Many shoulder surgeons like myself have noticed that patients can have a wide range of outcomes after the same rotator cuff repair surgery.  This paper gives further evidence that many psychosocial factors can affect the result of surgery and need to be addressed to maximize a patient's outcome.  Patients with preoperative narcotic use, higher preoperative pain scores, and lower scores on the WORC (rotator cuff questionnaire) index and emotion sections.

I am immensely interested in studying how we can use different technologies and treatments to best address the psychosocial factors that we all have our shoulder and elbow patients.  Check out more about my research in this field here.

If you have a rotator cuff tear and are considering rotator cuff surgery, please ask your shoulder surgeon if there is anything that you can do before surgery to improve your outcome.