Bilateral Anterior Shoulder Dislocation in the Elderly - A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Bilateral shoulder dislocations are rare and a diagnostic as well as a therapeutic challenge. We report the case of a 67-year-old male who fell while skiing and suffered a bilateral anterior shoulder dislocation associated with a four-part proximal humerus fracture on the left side and an osseous avulsion of the rotator cuff, a Pulley lesion, and a Hill-Sachs lesion on the right side. In addition, we searched the PubMed database using the terms "bilateral shoulder dislocation" and also "bilateral glenohumeral dislocation". All retrieved matches were browsed for reports of bilateral anterior shoulder dislocations in patients aged 40 years or older. We identified and analyzed 35 case reports, including our own, regarding 20 male and 15 female patients with an average age of 58.9 years (female: 59.2 years, male: 58.6 years). Elderly patients with a bilateral shoulder dislocation are at special risk for late diagnosis (five of 35 cases were not detected on the same day, but up to nine months later), concomitant pathologies (proximal humerus fractures were present in 19 cases; rotator cuff pathologies in seven cases), and insufficient diagnostic soft-tissue imaging (only four cases performed ultrasound/magnetic resonance imaging). Our reported case assembles a variety of possible concomitant pathologies. Through careful and comprehensive diagnostics all accompanying lesions were detected and subsequently addressed. The patient's outcome shows that even in older patients with a combination of various bony, cartilaginous, muscular and ligamentous pathologies, good-to-excellent post-reductive and post-operative results are possible if diagnostics are comprehensive and treatment is prompt.