Reverse Total Shoulder One Year Outcome

Just over a year ago, a pleasant lady in her mid 60s presented to our office with pain an debilitation in her right shoulder related to an irreparable rotator cuff tear and some moderate arthritis.  She was only able to elevate her arm to less than 90 degrees and this was quite painful to her.  X-rays revealed the hallmark signs of rotator cuff tear arthropathy with superior migration of her humeral head and some small peripheral bone spurs.  There sclerosis and smoothing of her greater tuberosity and undersurface of her acromion indicative of her the chronic nature of her disease.

 Given the presence of an irreparable rotator cuff tear, she was unable to undergo a standard shoulder replacement and elected to proceed with a reverse total shoulder replacement.  She recently returned to our clinic over 1 year from the date of her surgery.  She was doing remarkably well and reports no pain and better function than she has had in years.  A video of her functional result is shown below.