Lateral Patient Positioning for Shoulder Arthroscopy

CHAPTER 1B

The key is to have this all the way up against the axilla. Thumb neutrally positioned here. You can leave the towel in and then you overlap the foam, like that. Foam is overlapped and then the velcro goes over. The key is having this all over the axilla so we can get the lateral strap in place. Okay, so this lateral strap is very important - it just helps you with lateral translation of the glenohumeral joint. The next thing is this thing is also designed - so look here - to rotate - relax - see how I can rotate this, a little bit? We're going to keep it in a neutral - neutral position, so now I can rotate the arm. Put this up here. We already know that he has instability. You get this nice balanced suspension and so you have 45 degrees of abduction, 15 of forward flexion, and then a balanced lateral translation here - that just opens up the joint gently. Be really careful with this to make sure it's on the foam, and I take it off as soon as we're done, but it's so worked out very well without any issues - and it’s just a light amount of traction - 10 lbs.