A dislocated shoulder occurs when the ball of the upper arm bone, or 'humerus', becomes displaced from the joint socket, usually during a traumatic injury.
A new study in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery looked at 8,940 patients who visited hospital emergency departments in the US between 2002 and 2006 with a dislocated shoulder.
Researchers found that 71.8 per cent of all dislocations occurred in men and nearly half affected people between the ages of 15 and 29.
Analysis revealed that 48.3 per cent of dislocations happened during sports or recreational activities, with a significant proportion of these relating to basketball.
However, the research indicated that elderly women also face a significant risk of shoulder dislocations.
Study co-author Dr Brett Owens, orthopaedic surgeon at Keller Army Hospital in New York, observed: 'We were not too surprised to find the high number of young males dislocating their shoulders during athletic activity.
'However, the rate of shoulder dislocations among elderly women was higher than we had previously assumed.'
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