The #1 Most Important Piece of Your Rotator Cuff Repair Surgery Sling

Hey guys, Tony Maritato here, Licensed Physical Therapist and in this video I

wanted to quickly explain to you what you can expect from the

post-surgical sling that you'll be wearing after your rotator cuff repair surgery. So behind me on the screen you can see Amazon. I'm looking at some of

the slings that include the abduction pillow. So if you look closely right in

here behind there there's a cushion. You can see it here also kind of underneath

her forearm. There's a cushion that helps hold the arm away from the body at about 30 degrees of

what we call abduction. But a couple of things that they don't do a good job of here. If you notice in

this first image under the Amazon Choice, you can see that her hand, her wrist, is lower than her

elbow. So if that is the case, what's going to happen is you're going to get a lot of swelling

and fluid accumulation into the hand, the wrist, the fingers. I call it sausage fingers. I've got

another video talking about it but it starts to become pretty uncomfortable. So you would always

want the forearm to be at least horizontal. I always say the wrist just slightly above the elbow

and we want to line it up so that it's more kind of in neutral with the body. So my palm, the center

of my palm would be where kind of the middle of my sternum there's something called a xiphoid

process it's that little bony bump at the bottom of your sternum bone middle of your chest that's

where we want the hand to be and so positioning that before you have your rotator cuff repair

surgery is really helpful and important getting the sling a couple days before so you can fit it

properly so that you know how you supposed to wear it getting on and off without using that arm is always a challenge after surgery so if you can have it a little bit before surgery even better and then something else

that i would recommend if you notice this individual here in the red tank top she has

a secondary strap over the non-surgical shoulder it's a y or a split strap that helps take the

pressure off the base of the neck so if you're looking at the person on the left in the white

shirt that strap is cutting into the side of the neck over the brachial plexus that could potentially

lead to harm discomfort on the non-surgical side. I love this little attachment and most of the time

it comes with the sling you're going to get from your surgeon it's just people don't know how to

apply it how to put it on so using that it'll take the pressure off the base of the neck move it out

over onto the non-surgical shoulder a little better make life more comfortable but really if

you look at the pricing here you've got this off-brand $36 $37 sling you've got the Donjoy

which is the main brand that everybody uses for $97 depending on how you're covering the cost of

your surgery in most cases your surgeon and your insurance will cover the cost of your sling

but if you are looking for a way to manage costs a little bit better, Amazon and other retailers

do have an incredible deal on some of these slings that, you know, if you're going to get it

ahead of time, you might consider some of these. So guys, I hope this was helpful. If it is

do me a favor, subscribe to the channel. I'm trying hard to answer specific viewer questions

so feel free to post your questions in the YouTube comments, and I'll see you on the next video

Thank you