I had an interesting rotator cuff injury case this week. A young male with a long period of shoulder pain that had got worse in the last six months. On his in take form was a surgery from last october. He had the surgery as a last result to give him some relief. The surgery had given him some short-term relief but not long-lasting. The operation was to shave some of the bone around his ac joint and a excision. Prior to his surgery my client had several injections with only little to no relief. On his consultation with me there were no obvious signs of trauma or impact that could have been the cause to the presenting problem but his main complaint was lifting work goods above his head which would aggravate his pain.
On examination i found limited over head movements like lifting house hold goods into cupboards. Bringing his arm away from his body would also cause pain when getting to 90 degrees. when rotating his arm around his back to put his jacket on would also cause him really bad pain. sleeping on that side of his shoulder would also cause that same pain he presentted with.
On my further testing I found several of his shoulder muscles to be very under active. I found his surpraspinatus muscle over working for his middle deltoid muscle. releasing the supraspinatus muscle helped strengthen the deltoid muscle. I also found his medial inner shoulder muscle ( Subscapularis) under active and his opposite (Infraspinatus) over working. On releasing the over working muscle it helped strengthen the inner shoulder muscle and bring down the initial presenting pain
After every session has finished I assign a home care plan to meet the individual needs and build on the progress they have made in the session.
