Shoulder Pain and Frozen Shoulder

What is shoulder pain and frozen shoulder?

There are many causes of shoulder pain ranging from traumatic to non-traumatic causes. Frozen shoulder (i.e. adhesive capsulitis) is a condition characterized by marked shoulder stiffness and pain to move in all directions (usually develops gradually, worsens over time, and then resolves eventually taking up to 2 years)

What Causes It?

  • Traumatic causes like fracture, joint sprain/subluxation, injury to the rotator cuff or labrum
  • Non-traumatic causes include shoulder impingement, osteoarthritis and frozen shoulder

What symptoms might you experience?

  • Pain in the shoulder region may also spread to the elbow
  • Pain and movement impairment of the arm, sometimes coupled with weakness
  • Pain often worsens with offending movement/activity e.g. arm overhead, carrying load, weight bearing etc.
  • Pain may also be worse at rest or at night when sleeping e.g. resting on the painful shoulder

How is it treated?

As with most musculoskeletal conditions, management must involve a combination of medical and physiotherapeutic treatments.

Medical management involves prescription drugs to relieve pain, inflammation and ease muscle spasm e.g. NSAIDs and muscle relaxants; topical pain relief e.g. analgesic patch; joint injection if recommended.

Physiotherapy management

  • Activity modification & ergonomics
  • Sleeping posture advice
  • Cold/ heat pack
  • Therapeutic modalities such as SIS therapy, electrical stimulation and
  • ultrasound treatment
  • Manual therapy as tolerated (therapist applies hands-on treatment to
  • alleviate stiff joints and sore muscles where applicable)
  • Therapeutic exercises to help restore pain-free movement

Surgical management (in some traumatic cases e.g. fractures or when conservative management fails)

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