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Findings highlight outcomes of TSA in workers' compensation patients
Recently published data indicated patients who underwent anatomic total shoulder arthroplasty and received workers’ compensation were more likely than patients who did not have this designation to be male, younger and laborers with worse American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons scores.
“Outcomes are generally excellent and better than those of other [workers’ compensation] WC shoulder surgery cohorts in the literature; however, the outcomes are relatively worse than in the non-WC [total shoulder arthroplasty] TSA patients. A significant number of WC patients are unable to return to work after TSA,” the authors wrote.
Investigators compared the outcomes of 13 consecutive workers’ compensation patients who underwent anatomic TSA to those of 63 consecutive patients without workers’ compensation. The minimum follow-up was 2 years, with a mean follow-up of 46.5 months for the workers’ compensation group and 57.1 months for the control group.
According to demographic results, patients in the workers’ compensation group were younger than those in the control group. In addition, all patients in the workers’ compensation group were male and all but one was a laborer. Findings also showed the workers’ compensation group had significantly lower American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons scores at final follow-up compared with the control group (73.6 vs. 86.6). The groups were also not significantly different with regard to SF-12 physical and mental scores. Of the 13 workers’ compensation patients, four returned to work. ‒ by Monica Jaramillo
Disclosures: Jawa reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the full study for a list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.