Recovering from the dreaded shoulder surgery in SCI

Just as time, age and injury can cause ambulatory people to face knee and hip surgery, wheelchair users often end up with shoulder damage that requires surgery. Look, our bodies were never designed to take the brunt of pushing manual wheelchairs, transferring constantly and, basically, using our upper extremities to compensate for lack of mobility. Unfortunately, an active life on wheels can put more demands on the shoulders than they were designed for. The newly-injured, of course, are not even able to think about that possibility since they have virtually no history of experiencing pain in their shoulders. As the lifespans of people with spinal cord injury become more comparable with the general public, surgeons are becoming more creative with shoulder restoration. However, regardless of the type of repair, recovery is a long and arduous process.

New Mobility magazine published THIS ARTICLE recently which addressed the latest approaches available for this highly-invasive procedure with long healing time.