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SHOULDER & ROTATOR CUFF PROBLEMS

shoulder & rotator cuff physotherapy St Albans

The conditions

Shoulder problems are varied in nature, for example they can be:

  • brought on by a sudden accident (causing fractures and/or muscle or tendon injuries)

  • a result of a long-term weakness

  • caused by overload after a period of deconditioning (illness/low activity levels)

  • related to a condition called "frozen shoulder" where the whole joint freezes so that you have very restricted movement. 

  • caused by a tear in the rotator cuff (the muscles which protect the shoulder)

Physiotherapy can help in almost of these conditions. It can also prevent you needing surgery, and can speed up your recovery from surgery.

Assessment & treatment

Treatment involves aiming to modify symptoms in order to decrease pain and/or alter muscle weakness.

We will examine both over and under-activity of the rotator cuff and give you a series of exercises to help restore normal movement at the shoulder joint.

We will liaise with your consultant if you have had a steroid injection. Active physiotherapy is not recommended for 10-14 days post injection. This is because we need to allow as much steroid as possible to remain within the joint (if the injection was within the joint ).

Whilst steroid injections can be very beneficial they may cause muscle weakness. Therefore we will inform you on how to load your shoulder in a graduated way to optimise recovery.

Worth a watch

Dr Jeremy Lewis discusses aspects regarding our current understanding of rotator cuff-related shoulder pain, with some information on frozen shoulder too.

TESTIMONIAL

Before seeing Kate I had undergone rehabilitation of my shoulder following a shoulder operation for over a year. I was getting pain when I did certain actions. Within 5 appointments with Kate I was 80% better. She has the incredible ability to spot what did not work with the past treatment and come up with exactly what was causing the issue and then helped to fix it.

Mr  I P

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