A sling is mostly required after shoulder surgery, apart from some rare indications. The purpose of the sling is to provide comfort to the patient, to allow proper rehabilitation, but also to avoid movements which could cause harm to the shoulder operation.
Often is the case, that anchors are used to repair or reconstruct a joint, and these are usually plastic and a few millimetres in size and are only there really to hold the tissues together until they heal.
For example, in shoulder reconstruction, we like to avoid excessive external rotation, as that will put pressure through the anchors, and the sling is really used to stop that excessive movement.
But that doesn’t mean that other movements won’t be allowed, and we’ll have strict instructions about what can and can’t be done after the procedure. Most often, patients can remove the sling to do basic activities of daily living, such as brushing teeth, eating and drinking, watching TV and occasionally sleeping.
For rotator cuff surgery, it’s not dissimilar, but active elevation is to be avoided for the first six weeks. So the sling essentially is to stop that movement.