Evaluating the Role and Impact of Health Literacy for Patients Undergoing Knee Surgery.

Health literacy is defined as "the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic medical information and services and the competence to use such information and services to enhance health." Much of the research regarding health literacy in orthopaedic surgery has focused on readability of educational materials. However, the role of health literacy in patient-reported outcomes is somewhat unknown.

Reducing the Use of Complex Words and Reducing Sentence Length to <15 Words Improves Readability of Patient Education Materials Regarding Sports Medicine Knee Injuries.

Purpose: To develop a standardized method to improve readability of orthopaedic patient education materials (PEMs) without diluting their critical content by reducing the use of complex words (≥3 syllables) and shortening sentence length to ≤15 words.

Methods: OrthoInfo, a patient education website developed by the Academy of American Orthopedic Surgeons, was queried for PEMs relevant to the care of athletic injuries of the knee. Inclusion criteria were PEMs that were unique, pertained to topics of knee pathology in sports medicine, and written in a prose format.

Utility of lateral scapular radiographs in initial evaluation of nontraumatic shoulder conditions.

Background: Lateral scapular radiographs have been routinely included in the initial radiographic examination of both traumatic and nontraumatic shoulder conditions. With the advance of modern imaging modalities, the clinical utility of the lateral scapular view has become questionable. The purpose of the study was to assess the utilization of the lateral scapular view among the members of the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES) and to determine the clinical utility of the lateral scapular view in the initial evaluation of nontraumatic shoulder conditions.