Language Barriers in the Delivery of Musculoskeletal Care and Future Directions.

purpose of reviewExamine how language barriers impact musculoskeletal care in the United States, particularly for patients with non-English language preference (NELP), and to highlight strategies to improve equity in orthopaedic outcomes. RECENT

findingsIn the U.S., 24.5 million individuals have NELP, yet few orthopaedic surgeons are proficient in non-English languages. NELP is consistently associated with worse postoperative outcomes, lower patient-reported outcome scores, and disparities in access to care. Studies have shown that language discordance contributes to miscommunication, reduced satisfaction, and suboptimal recovery. Despite federal mandates requiring interpreter services, access remains inconsistent, and many institutions fall short in providing language-concordant care. Recent research supports interventions such as professional interpreter use, language-concordant provider matching, multilingual discharge instructions, validated non-English PROMs, as well as the use of artificial intelligence. Language-related disparities in orthopaedic surgery are well-documented but under-addressed. Improving equity for patients with NELP will require system-wide efforts to standardize interpreter access, expand language-concordant care, and integrate emerging tools such as artificial intelligence to support communication across the surgical continuum.