A recent study that appears in the March 2010 issue of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery found that young males and elderly women have the highest risk of shoulder dislocation. The study also revealed that the majority of all shoulder dislocations occur during sports activities.

The study authors found the overall incidence rate was 23.9 shoulder dislocations per 100,000 person years (the product of the number of years times the number of members of a population who have been affected by a certain condition). This is more than double the previous rate reported for shoulder dislocations for the US general population, according to an announcement about the article.

Co-author Brett Owens, MD, orthopaedic surgeon at Keller Army Hospital in West Point, NY, and his colleagues studied 8,940 shoulder dislocations in patients presenting to 100 hospital emergency departments across the United States from 2002 to 2006. The purpose of the study was to identify the specific groups of individuals at risk to help direct prevention efforts.

"Shoulder instability is one of the most common reasons young athletes see orthopaedic surgeons," Owens said. "However, little has been reported about the incidence of this injury."

Of all dislocations, the study found:
71.8% were in men;
46.8% were in patients between 15 and 29 years;
48.3% occurred during sports or recreation; and
37% of all sports-related injuries were football or basketball related.

Dislocations most frequently resulted from a fall (58.8%), of which 47.7% occurred at home and 33.6% occurred at recreation or sports sites.

In women, higher dislocation rates were seen among those aged 80 to 90 years old, due mostly to falls at home.

"We were not too surprised to find the high number of young males dislocating their shoulders during athletic activity," Owens said. "However, the rate of shoulder dislocations among elderly women was higher than we had previously assumed."

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