The authors conducted a randomized, controlled trial of 83 patients with acute, complete dislocation of the AC joint. Overall, 43 patients were treated nonoperatively and 40 were treated operatively. At 3-month follow-up, they found that patients in the non-operative cohort had better physical health scores than the operative cohort based on the Short Form-36 (SF-36) version 2 survey. There were no significant differences between the physical health scores of the two groups at any other time point (6 weeks, 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years). Further, SF-36 mental health scores were similar between the non-operative and operative groups at all follow-up intervals. Learn more...
