Surgery or Exercise?

About a million orthopaedic surgeries are performed each year in Australia and these numbers are continuing to rise. A recent study marked a significant increase in shoulder surgery in Western Australia including a 473% rise in public funded rotator cuff surgeries. These numbers are reflected similarly for other joint surgeries such as knee and hip replacements.
A recent news story on SBS Insight shined a light on this data and asked the question; how many of these surgeries are necessary? The evidence for surgery in many of these cases has little scientific evidence when compared with conservative treatments such as exercise. So when considering a surgical management do your research and talk to as many experts as possible before deciding if you can get just as good or better outcomes from options such as physiotherapy, exercise rehabilitation or Pilates.