Posterior instability of the shoulder joint

Background: Shoulder instability affects approximately 2 % of the general population. Among those most affected are young people participating in sport activities. Athletes involved in overhead sports, such as tennis, weight lifting, volleyball and throwing sports are especially predisposed to developing posterior instability of the shoulder. Men are affected three times more often than women. Compared to the much more common anterior instability, posterior instability with a prevalence of 2–10 % of all shoulder instabilities, is often overlooked and therefore incorrectly treated. Reports in the literature have recently become more frequent and the prevalence is increasing. Aim of the work: This aim of this review article is to highlight the current topic of posterior shoulder instability and increase awareness concerning the diagnostics and therapy. Material and Methods: By means of the search machine http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, reviews and recent studies on posterior instability of the shoulder were identified using the keywords shoulder, posterior and instability. Results and Discussion: With a prevalence of 2–10 % of all shoulder instabilities, posterior shoulder instability is often overlooked and therefore incorrectly treated. The cause in most cases is unnoticed microtrauma. Pain during certain movements is often the main symptom and instability is perceived only as a secondary symptom. For small or no bony defects arthroscopic posterior labral repair provides excellent results. For bony operations the extent of a reverse Hill-Sachs lesion defect is primarily decisive. © 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.