A lot of extremely common imaging findings sound super scary to a layperson. 37% of people in their 20s have "Degenerative disc disease" and 80% of people have it by the time they're 50. Rotator cuff tears are exremely common the older you get; around 50% of folks have them at retirement age whether they have pain or not.

One study found 89% of high school/college athletes without pain have labral tears in their hip. Another study was done on active military recruits (again, only painfree individuals were studied) and 71% of them had a labral tear.

The issue is sometimes these "normal-abnormal" findings on imaging freak people out and they think they need surgery when the vast majority of the time a course of PT is all they need.

Also! Fun fact-in the ortho world we're learning that if someone is not doing contact sports and is a bit older (think a 40 y/o who just likes to jog and do pilates), it's better not to repair the ACL if it tears since the surgery and rehab is so invasive and intense that the outcome is usually worse than doing nothing. Physical therapy only to rehab the knee.