Department of Orthopaedic Surgery Assistant Professor and Section Chief of Sports Medicine Amit Momaya, M.D., was a co-author for the research article “Does Functional Bracing of the Unstable Shoulder Improve Return to Play in Scholastic Athletes? Returning the Unstable Shoulder to Play.”

The article was featured in the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine’s journal Sports Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Momaya and co-authors hypothesizes that the use of functional bracing will improve success rates in a cohort of athletes treated nonoperatively for in-season shoulder instability.

Authors conducted a cohort study, which was the first of its kind to evaluate the utility of functional bracing in returning an athlete to sport and completing a full subsequent season without surgery or time loss due to injury of the shoulder. They found that in adolescent athletes with shoulder instability treated nonoperatively, functional bracing did not result in increased success rates when compared with no bracing.

Ultimately, authors concluded the data from this study indicate that functional bracing may not improve success rates for athletes with shoulder instability.

“There are many approaches to treating athletic shoulder injuries,” said Momaya. “And it is helpful for us, as providers, to apply this knowledge when forming a treatment plan to get our athletes back to their performance levels as soon as we can.”