Frozen Shoulder (FS for short) is characterised by severe shoulder or upper arm pain with restricted shoulder movement both actively (you are doing the movement) and passively (the clinician is testing the movement).
Symptoms can often be felt down the arm, and are commonly exacerbated with fast, jolting or unplanned movements, resulting in a sharp pain. Sleep is also commonly affected regardless of the position you take up.
Unfortunately, it is unknown how the condition is caused exactly, however, it is generally thought to be associated with a traumatic shoulder injury, a stressful event and/or anxiety and depression.
Females are slightly more susceptible than males and it often occurs between the ages of 40 – 65. There is a strong link between FS and diabetes, particularly type 1 or insulin dependent diabetes. There are also associations of FS with Hypo and Hyperthyroidism and metabolic syndrome.
FS is a clinical diagnosis meaning imaging (MRI, X-RAY or Ultrasound) is not required and diagnosis can be made by your physician or physiotherapist. This is generally done by taking a patient history and completing a series of physical tests to confirm the diagnosis. 90% of people with FS will recover with non-surgical intervention (Cho et al. 2019) – meaning chartered physiotherapy is the best option for you to significantly reduce your pain and return to normal functioning. Surgery has been shown to be no more clinically effective than non-surgical interventions (Longo et al. 2018).
Our physiotherapists can help you with choosing appropriate management options – these include:
Advice and education
Resistance exercises
Stretching
Mobility exercises
Cortico-steroid injection (referral to injection practitioner if warranted).
Joint mobilisation (4 months after onset)
What do other people with FS say about it? A study done by Jones et al 2013 found that people described it as ‘pain which is severe as well as inexplicable; an inconvenient disability arising from increasing restriction of movement (due to pain initially, gradually giving way to stiffness); confusion/anxiety associated with delay in diagnosis and uncertainty about the implications for the future; and treatment-related aspects’.
If this sounds like the shoulder pain you are currently experiencing, do seek medical advice from one of our clinicians so we can help you make sense of your pain and get you back on the road to recovery!
References
Cho et al. 2019 – Treatment Strategy for Frozen Shoulder
Jones et al. 2013 – A qualitative study of patients’ perceptions and priorities when living with primary frozen shoulder
Longo et al. 2018 – The effectiveness of conservative and surgical treatment for shoulder stiffness: a systematic review of current literature
