Have you recently injured your shoulder? If so, you know an impaired shoulder significantly impacts your daily life. Depending on the injury, you may wake up in the middle of the night due to shoulder pain, struggle to reach overhead, or even find it impossible to move your shoulder. Fortunately, Rose City Physical Therapy offers simple solutions for recovering from a shoulder injury.
Shoulder injuries are relatively common, although they vary wildly in their symptoms, causes, and limitations in activity. For example, shoulder‒or rotator cuff‒tendinitis causes pain and limited motion and results from overuse, while a frozen shoulder might cause severe, debilitating pain and shoulder immobility while having no apparent cause.
The good news is that physical therapy can resolve most shoulder injuries. Our team can help you understand the exact nature of your shoulder injury and provide a customized treatment plan to help you manage pain, immobility, and limited function while working to resolve the underlying impairment.
Are you curious how physical therapy can help you recover from a shoulder injury? Call us to schedule an appointment at our Portland, OR clinic today!
Understanding Common Shoulder Injuries
Your shoulder is a complex ball-and-socket joint with an impressive range of motion. However, that complexity means there are a lot of potential injuries you can sustain. Here are a few of the most common:
- Rotator Cuff Tear: Your rotator cuff is a set of four muscles and tendons that support and stabilize the shoulder joint. If any of these muscles or tendons tear, you’ll experience pain and weakness throughout the shoulder. Rotator cuff tears often result from repetitive strain–repeatedly performing the same movements—but they can also occur from a single episode of trauma.
- Shoulder Impingement: Shoulder impingement can involve the rotator cuff, a large bursa, or the bicep tendon. It occurs when any of these tissues get pinched under the bony aspect at the top of your shoulder with the arm bone (the humerus). Impingement leads to inflammation, pain, and weakness.
- Shoulder Subluxation or Dislocation: A sudden, severe injury can lead to a subluxated or a dislocated shoulder, in which the humerus bone (the “ball” part of the shoulder’s ball-and-socket joint) pops out then back in (subluxates) or fully dislocates out of the shoulder socket, often causing ligaments or cartilage to tear. A dislocation can lead to shoulder instability with a sense of the shoulder “giving out.”
- Frozen Shoulder: This condition causes intense pain and eventual severe stiffness in the shoulder. It begins with intense pain and a gradual loss of range of motion. Then, the pain subsides while the immobility remains. After several months to up to three years, the shoulder will eventually “thaw,” and motion will return. Unlike the conditions on this list, frozen shoulders are more mysterious and often don’t have a clear cause.
Recovering from a Shoulder Injury: Physical Therapy’s Role
Experts consider physical therapy a frontline treatment against shoulder injuries. This means you’ll generally start with physical therapy and then move on to more invasive techniques if your shoulder problem doesn’t respond to physical therapy. Mostly, recovering from a shoulder injury with physical therapy means restoring joint mobility, stretching, strengthening, and activity-specific functional exercises involving the shoulder and shoulder blade muscles.
We generally begin with pain management. Alleviating pain is necessary before you can move on to more progressive treatment. Our physical therapists will find the right pain management plan for you, generally through a blend of manual therapy and pain relieving modalities, such as cold laser, hot and cold therapy, and electrical stimulation. Manual therapy techniques for pain management include joint mobilizations, soft tissue manipulation, or trigger point therapy.
Manual therapy is also essential for improving mobility and range of motion. Joint mobilization can help gradually improve mobility over time, as it involves the therapist gently guiding the shoulder through its current range of motion and into stiffness to increase it gradually. Soft tissue techniques can also promote blood circulation to the shoulder, helping to facilitate healing.
As you see improvements in pain and immobility, we’ll begin incorporating therapeutic exercise into your treatment plan. Exercise is one of the best ways of managing a shoulder injury, and we’ll develop a customized treatment plan that suits your needs. The focus will be improving mobility, restoring strength to the rotator cuff, and improving your shoulder’s overall functionality.
In many cases, physical therapy alone can resolve a shoulder injury. However, there will always be some exceptions, and severe injuries may require surgical intervention. However, physical therapy still has an essential role after surgery, as you’ll need a dedicated rehabilitation program to restore strength and function to your shoulder.
What to Expect While Recovering from a Shoulder Injury
Recovering from a shoulder injury certainly takes some time and effort. However, Rose City Physical Therapy is here to guide you through the process!
When you come in for your initial appointment, our first step will be conducting a comprehensive evaluation to help us better understand your shoulder injury. We’ll take a complete health history, talk to you about symptoms and impairments, and complete several movement screens that test for strength and mobility in your shoulder. In addition, special tests that rule out specific tissue injury will be performed.
All this information helps us develop your treatment plan. We personalize every plan to the patient, allowing us to build it around your particular injury, symptoms, and rehabilitation goals. While every plan is different, you can generally expect it to be exercise-focused, with tailored, targeted exercises designed to resolve the impairment.
We’ll also help with pain management and any necessary activity modifications. For example, suppose repetitive strain causes your shoulder injury. In that case, a few simple ergonomic adjustments to your workspace might help prevent future injuries, mainly if you address any underlying muscle weakness that might have led to the injury in the first place.
Say Goodbye to Your Shoulder Injury. Make an Appointment Today!
Shoulder pain and impairment can significantly impact your overall quality of life. If you notice any aches and pains in your shoulder, call Rose City Physical Therapy for an appointment. The longer you leave a shoulder injury unaddressed, the more likely it is to worsen, so early intervention is critical!
Schedule your initial consultation at our clinic today!