Shoulder Injury Sling
What is a sling?
A sling is a type of bandage, whose purpose is to provide support, and stability to a joint. The joint can be damaged, dislocated, or recovering from surgery, after which it may need to be kept immobile as much as possible to give the muscles, tendons, and bones time to heal. A sling helps achieve this goal and is a cost effective option.
Slings have always been used for this purpose right from the time of Hippocrates. In an emergency almost anything can be used for a sling like a belt or a piece of clothing. Most slings that you see are made up of a triangular piece of cloth, two ends of which are tied together around the neck or shoulder.
Types of slings
There are three types of slings; arm slings, elevated slings, and 'Collar and Cuff' slings. They can all be used to immobilise the forearm, shoulder or wrist. Slings can also be used in the case of fractured collarbones, and in some cases to aid in the recovery of broken ribs.
Slings are also used as an emergency first aid, usually while waiting to get proper medical treatment. If you have to give first aid to a person with a dislocated shoulder or a fracture, don't try and realign the bones yourself. You can use a sling or a splint to immobilise the area, but try and do it without moving the shoulder about too much. You might cause more harm than good.
Another handy feature of slings is that they are highly visible. People will notice that you're using a sling, and people are thus extra careful not to bump into you! If you're in a crowd the sling should give you lots more protection than you could get by just moving yourself, or others out of the way.
Shoulder Slings
Slings are most commonly used to stabilise the shoulder joint. The sling is very easy to make for a shoulder that requires protection due to the way the shoulder is positioned. A fractured shoulder, or a dislocated one, often requires a sling during convalescence.
The way to make a shoulder sling is to take a triangular piece of cloth and place your arm over it such that the elbow is at one point of the triangle, and your wrist lies between the other two points. The two points near the wrist are then brought up and tied together behind the neck.
There are quite a few variations to this sort of sling, but all of them have the desired effect of immobilising the shoulder effectively.
This immobility has the potential to work against your shoulder if you're not careful. If your shoulder is inflamed, and you use a sling to immobilise it, you might find it so comfortable that you risk not using your shoulder at all. A shoulder sling can be worn for anywhere up to 6 weeks or so depending on the injury. In the case of shoulder bursitis, or Frozen shoulder, this would make the condition much worse with full blown shoulder immobility, inflammation, pain, and damage.
Wear a shoulder sling only after consulting with your physio, or doctor. They might offer you better solution as slings do in some cases cause shoulder stiffness.
