Background: Across many sports, injuries to the upper extremity (UE) are prevalent due to falls on an outstretched hand (FOOSH) and overuse. This retrospective analysis aimed to characterize sports-related UE injuries in the United States (US) over the past decade, examining injury frequency, affected body part, diagnosis, and hospital disposition across age, sex, and sport. Methods: The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) was queried for sports injuries presented to US emergency departments (EDs) from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2023. Patient demographics, injury site, diagnosis, and disposition were recorded. Annual injury trends were evaluated by linear regression. All statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS (version 30.0) software. Results: There were 1,330,108 nationally estimated (NE) UE sports injuries (47,371 NEISS Cases) that were presented to US EDs from 2014 to 2023. Linear regression revealed a significant decrease in annual injuries across the study period (β = −0.63, R² = 0.40 p = 0.05). For many sports, including football, basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, wrestling, volleyball, hockey, and rugby, rates of UE injury decreased significantly during the study period. Fractures were the predominant diagnosis across all age groups, observed among 99.3% of patients. Football was the most common sport associated with UE injury in elementary to high school-age children, with basketball becoming more common in patients from 19 to 50 years old. Tennis-related injuries were the most common for patients above 50 years old. Across all sports, the most commonly injured body parts were fingers (33.5%), wrists (20.3%), and lower arms (17.3%). Notably, shoulder injuries accounted for 99.1% of all wrestling cases and 71.5% of all lacrosse injuries included in this study. Conclusions: Sports-related UE injuries decreased significantly from 2014 to 2023, with notable declines during the COVID-19 pandemic. The injuries included in this study varied depending on sport, age, and sex, allowing for the recommendation of specific interventions. While few injuries led to hospitalization, those that did typically involved lower arm injuries; further efforts to reduce these injuries will reduce the burden placed on US hospitals.

Introduction: Social media is increasingly pivotal in healthcare communication, with TikTok emerging as a leading platform because of its visually engaging, short-format videos. With nearly 2 billion users spending over 50 minutes daily on the app, TikTok offers a novel medium for disseminating orthopaedic information. Pediatric fractures—employed here as a representative model—are particularly relevant given the high social media use among youth and caregivers. This study investigates TikTok's role as an educational tool for orthopaedic surgeons and examines public engagement. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted analyzing TikTok videos related to pediatric fractures. A newly created TikTok account was used to identify the top popular videos for each fracture type, excluding non-English, off-topic, private, or duplicate content. Engagement metrics, including views, likes, shares, comments, and bookmarks, were recorded. Video understandability was assessed using the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool for Audiovisual Materials. Video reliability was assessed using the modified DISCERN scale. Videos were categorized by creator identity (physician, allied healthcare provider, patient, parent, and other). Results: A total of 190 TikTok videos accumulated more than 25.7 million views and 1.8 million likes. Although nonexpert sources (parents and patients) contributed 87.9% of the content, healthcare professional–generated videos comprised 12.1% and demonstrated markedly higher engagement and quality scores. In particular, physician-produced content achieved the highest median views and shares (P < 0.01). Discussion: The predominance of nonexpert content underscores a missed opportunity to leverage TikTok for disseminating reliable, evidence-based orthopaedic education. Expert-driven videos not only offer superior clarity, reliability, and actionable guidance but also align with the public's preference, suggesting broad applicability across orthopaedic subspecialties. Conclusion: TikTok represents a promising platform for enhancing orthopaedic education. Increasing healthcare professional engagement may improve the delivery of accurate, evidence-based content, ultimately advancing musculoskeletal health literacy and patient outcomes.

Anatomic total shoulder arthroplasty (aTSA) is a technique commonly utilized to address degenerative pathologies of the glenohumeral joint. Utilization of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) has led to increased reliance on the minimum clinically important difference (MCID), substantial clinical benefit (SCB), and patient acceptable symptom state (PASS) thresholds to assess efficacy of aTSA. PubMed, Embase, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar were queried for articles from January 1, 2000, March 31, 2023, reporting MCID, SCB, or PASS values for PROMs following aTSA. Patient demographics, study characteristics, MCID/SCB/PASS thresholds, and threshold calculation methods utilized were extracted. Across the 30 studies comprising 11,482 patients who underwent aTSA, there were 13 unique PROMs reported. The most common were the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES) score, the Simple Shoulder Test, the Constant-Murley Shoulder Outcome Score, the University of California at Los Angeles Shoulder Score, the Shoulder Pain and Disability Index score, and the Visual Analog Scale. Of 30 studies, 25 (83%) reported MCID thresholds, 15 (50%) reported SCB, and 6 (20%) reported PASS. Of 30 studies, 20 (67%) studies reference a previous study when reporting MCID, SCB, or PASS values. Five (17%) used an anchor-based method to calculate threshold values, 1 (3%) used a distribution-based method, and 4 (13%) used both anchor and distribution methods. There were 46 newly calculated MCID (29) and SCB (17) threshold values. A variety of approaches were employed for threshold calculation, with anchor (difference in change) being the most common (52.9%). Notably, 83.3% of MCID thresholds had variability >50% of the most commonly referenced values and 33.3% of SCB calculated thresholds are >25% of the most commonly referenced values reported for the 6 most commonly utilized PROMs (American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons, Simple Shoulder Test, Constant-Murley Shoulder Outcome Score, University of California at Los Angeles Shoulder Score, Shoulder Pain and Disability Index, and Visual Analog Scale). The calculation methods and reported MCID, SCB, and PASS thresholds in the aTSA literature demonstrate variability, especially for the most commonly utilized PROMs. Standardizing calculation and utilization of MCID, SCB, and PASS thresholds for aTSA will ensure clinicians may more effectively assess patient outcomes.