Shoulder Pain
Home Physio specializes in diagnosing and carefully treating Shoulder Pain while making sure each patient is fully informed throughout the process. Serving the Central, West & North London , Home Physio is known for delivering outstanding results while helping you minimize your personal investment and creating a suitable treatment plan for your needs.
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Why is our shoulder important?
Shoulder pain is a common ailment — affecting 18% to 26% of adults — but that doesn’t mean it’s ever convenient. The shoulder has the most range of motion of all our joints, so it’s not surprising that shoulder pain and injuries are both common and incredibly uncomfortable.
The shoulder joint is made up of three main parts:
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Humerus (the upper-arm bone)
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Clavicle (the collarbone)
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Scapula (the shoulder blade)
These bones, held together by muscles, tendons and ligaments, are what allow us to do everyday tasks with ease. Because it’s one of the most-used parts of the body, it’s at a higher risk for injury, which is why it’s important to both understand how to protect the shoulders as well as how to properly treat shoulder pain and injuries.
Common injuries that lead to shoulder pain treatment
Knowing why you’re experiencing shoulder pain is the first step to treating it, and shoulders can be injured by a variety of activities, including seemingly harmless ones, like sitting at your desk at work. The types of shoulder injuries can be neatly divided into two main categories: sudden injuries and injuries born from overuse.
Sudden Injuries
Also known as acute injuries, these can be the result of anything from tripping and landing on your shoulder to twisting the shoulder in an unnatural way. Sudden injuries can include:
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Bruises
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Injured tendons, which connect the muscle to the bone
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Injured ligaments, which help keep the shoulder joint stable
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Injured nerves
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Torn rotator cuff, which happens when any of the four tendons that cover the shoulder joint is damaged
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Strained muscles
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Broken bones
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Dislocation
After an acute shoulder injury, you’ll likely see bruising or swelling straight away, and you may feel tingling or numbness if the injury resulted in a pinched nerve or damaged blood vessel.
Overuse Injuries
Overuse injuries can be more sinister than acute injuries since they can develop slowly over time as a result of your everyday activities. They’re the result of the shoulder joint or the surrounding tissue facing excess stress, and you may not even realize anything’s wrong until you suddenly find yourself with an annoying shoulder pain to deal with. Overuse injuries can include:
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Bursitis, which is when the fluid sac cushioning and lubricating the shoulder joint becomes inflamed.
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Tendinitis, which is when the tendons become inflamed.
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Muscle strain.
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Frozen shoulder, which “freezes” your shoulder’s range of movement.
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Impingement syndrome, which is when overhead arm movements force the tendons to rub against a part of the shoulder blade, which can lead the rotator cuff tendons to become inflamed.
While acute and overuse injuries are the most common reason for shoulder pain, there are a handful of less-common injuries that can also affect your shoulder, including:
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Irregular posture
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Osteoarthritis
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Herniated disk
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Calcium buildup
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Infection
How Physical Therapy Can Help With Shoulder Pain and Shoulder Injuries
Whether it’s rotator cuff tears or other injuries to the muscles surrounding the shoulder, physical therapy for shoulder pain is often a successful, non-surgical treatment. It aims to strengthen the muscles around your shoulder to improve its function and your mobility.
Your doctor may refer you to a physical therapist to deal with your shoulder pain, and the physical therapist will examine your injury and establish the best course of treatment.
The treatment will be custom-designed to help you recover from your injury and regain your mobility, and your therapist may also include advice on how to alter your everyday activities to better support your shoulders, so you can avoid re-injury. You may also be assigned a unique home-exercise routine to follow to help you maintain your mobility once your therapy sessions are complete.
In some cases, physical therapy can prevent the need for surgery, which is especially beneficial for older adults who may not have as high a success rate with surgery. Studies show the majority of patients find physical therapy for shoulder injuries to be adequate, although the length of recovery can vary from person to person. Even in cases where surgery is inevitable, physical therapy is a great way to prepare and strengthen the body prior to and after surgery.
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Physical Therapy Treatments for Shoulder Pain
Depending on the specifics of your injury, the shoulder therapy that your physical therapist will prescribe will likely include one or more of the following types of treatment:
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Ice therapy: The RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression Elevation) modal encourages icing injured spots for acute injuries. It helps reduce inflammation and swelling, which, in turn, helps reduce pain, as well.
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Heat therapy: In contrast to ice therapy, which used within the first hours of the injury, heat therapy is best used after 72 hours have passed. Like ice therapy, it’s also a painkiller and allows muscles to relax.
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Hands-on therapy: As the name implies, hands-on therapy requires the physical therapist’s help to relax the injured shoulder. With their hands, the physical therapist uses direction-specific pressure on the tissue to help it regain some of its natural mobility.
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Stretching: Stretching is a common type of therapy for shoulder pain since it’s designed to gently push your muscles further and further until you regain your range of motion. The physical therapist will likely incorporate varying levels of stretches that may target the parts of the shoulder as well as the neck and spine, depending on the injury.
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Strengthening: Strengthening is essentially another way of saying exercise since the physical therapist may recommend you practice specific strengthening exercises to reduce the pain at the injury site while also strengthening other muscles, like your core. The goal is to leave you stronger than before the injury in an attempt to prevent its reoccurrence.
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Joint mobilization: Another type of therapy in which the physical therapist’s help is necessary, joint mobilization aims to increase the injured shoulder’s mobility by stretching the joint capsule. Because it requires a thorough understanding of anatomy, it’s only performed by a trained, professional physical therapist.
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Ultrasound: A therapeutic ultrasound — not to be confused with a diagnostic ultrasound — is a type of physical therapy for shoulder pain in which the muscles, tendons and other soft tissue are treated to a session of deep heating. The heat improves the circulation in the tissue, which both alleviates pain and assists in healing the injury. Therapeutic ultrasounds also help increase the elasticity of muscles, especially in cases of frozen shoulder, in order to allow the muscles to stretch more easily and, thus, increase the range of mobility.
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Electrical stimulation: One way to strengthen the muscles of the injured shoulder is to stimulate the nerves. Sometimes, it’s used to contract muscles or reduce inflammation, but it can also be used as a way to administer medication.
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Athletic taping: Your physical therapist may opt to use athletic tape as part of your shoulder physical therapy in conjunction with other methods of therapy, such as exercises.
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Kinesiology taping: While athletic taping aims to limit movement, kinesiology taping encourages movement in a safe and secure way while increasing circulation. Depending on the type of shoulder injury you’re suffering, the physical therapist may use one of these taping methods or neither.