Guideline for Rotator cuff rehabilitation

There are many school of thoughts for RC rehabilitation, here we try to make you easy understanding how to approach . While assessing the rotator cuff in person .

when patient come to us after rotator cuff repair surgery we need to fully understand his daily activities affecting their ability to their normal life. Here there are few keys that need to be consider…….

Key consideration factors in Rotator Cuff Rehab :

• age of the patient,
• activity level,
• injury to affected shoulder,
• response to previous treatment,
• imaging and what were the findings,
• past medical history,
• joint status (hypermobile or hypomobile),
• what they think is going on in their shoulder,
• most importantly is the ultimate goal of the client.

Plan for treatment……..

what do we do for people presenting some form of shoulder pain? There are many different answers but for the purpose of this, we will keep it simple that will help restore
pain free ROM, strength, and slowly return them back to their functional level.

Control on the shoulder pain :

We want to get the shoulder joint moving through self-ROM activities. We prefered patient to go for foam roll their thoracic spine and Latismus dorsi muscles to achieve overhead shoulder mobility. We will work on external rotation ROM at 45 degrees and 90 degrees of abduction.

Following this exercise we prefer to work on shoulder flexion AAROM in supine position, once gradually ROM restore we’d prefer kinetic chain activation exercise.

For strengthening,we like to begin with isometric activities to help with pain control.

When to start  higher level strengthening programme:

Once you achieve all criteria for advanced training we would like to start strengthening activities, we add isotonic strength training with  theraband  : full can, sidelying external rotation, prone horizontal abduction, prone extension and prone full can. There are Many studies have shown the EMG activity of the rotator cuff and scapula stabilizers to be relatively high with most of these activities.

There are  evidance, we like to add program in our routine protocol but will change the weights, sets and reps depending on Patient tolerance during exercise.

We rarely have patients perform 3 sets of 10 repetitions so the goal of the exercise needs to be fully understood in order to prescribe it correctly.

Advanced strengthening :

Once an adequate base of strength is achieved , we will add another level of strengthening programme depending upon patient’s requirement. We also focus on proprioceptive exercise once adequate strength achieved.

For athlete , Plyometric strength training is incorporated to allow the athlete to produce a force and power in his sports activities. which will hopefully help them in their return to their sport. This may include chest press, overhead throws, and rotational throws etc…

Pull ups, push-ups, bench pressing and overhead pressing are also added to make sure the athlete is strong in multiple planes to performing his sports.

Finally,The key is knowing the ultimate goal of the athlete .there are many factors that need to be considered when returning a patient back to their highest functional level when they have a  cuff injury.

This post was my attempt at outlining a very general guideline for an athlete or non athletic poplution with a rotator cuff issue and what my thought process may be.

Remember, listen to their issues…they may just tell you what program is best for them!

Any question!!!!!!!

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