A systematic review of pre-hospital shoulder reduction techniques for anterior shoulder dislocation and the effect on patient return to function

Purpose: The majority of acute anterior shoulder dislocations are sustained during sports and wilderness activities. The management of acute dislocations in the pre-hospital setting is currently without guidelines based on the evidence. The study aims to assess the risk of acute complications in pre-hospital shoulder reduction and identify which pre-hospital reduction technique has the highest success rate in the published literature.

Methods: The involved databases were Allied and Complementary Medicine, CENTRAL, CINAHL, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Embase, Europe PMC, Ovid MEDLINE®, Pedro, Proquest, Trip, and World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry platform. Only original research of high methodological quality was included, which was defined by the recently developed assessment tool-assessing the methodological quality of published papers (AMQPP) and investigated the management of acute anterior shoulder dislocations in the pre-hospital setting.

Results: Two hundred and ninety-eight articles were identified and screened. A full text review was performed on 40 articles. Four articles published between 2015 and 2018 met the inclusion criteria. A total of 181 patients were included with the study duration ranging from 6 to 60 months. All studies reported zero immediate complication following pre-hospital reduction and there were no documented subsequent adverse events regardless of the technique used. Prompt resolution of neurological symptoms was observed following the early and successful pre-hospital reduction. First attempt success rate, when performed by skilled practitioners, ranged from 72.3% to 94.9%.

Conclusion: Pre-hospital shoulder reduction appears to be a safe and feasible option when carried out with the appropriate expertise. A novel reduction technique adapted from the mountain medicine diploma course at the University of Paris North was found to have the highest first attempt reduction success rate of 94.9%. Other techniques described in the literature included Hippocratic, Stimson's, Counter-traction and external rotation with the success rates ranging from 54% to 71.7%.