Introduction

The shoulder joint is an extremely flexible joint which allows us to move the arm in all directions. This wide range of joint movement means the shoulder is very susceptible to injury and there are several conditions that commonly present in the shoulder. It’s useful to have an understanding of these conditions as it may help our clinical reasoning processes and allow us to more effectively hypothesise about the cause of shoulder pain in an individual as well as inform the management strategies that we utilise for each individual. This course explores four most common causes of shoulder pain and impairment: rotator cuff / subacromial related, capsular related, glenohumeral instability, and acromioclavicular joint disease.  Clinical reasoning skills to differentiate between these presentations will be covered, as well as understanding what affects prognosis including psychosocial factors that affect shoulder pain.

Aims

The aim of this course is to explore common shoulder conditions and become familiar with the related pain presentations, to be able to differentiate between them and predict prognosis.

Outline

This course is made up of videos, reading, forum posts and a final quiz. The course content is split into the following sections:

1. Subacromial / Rotator Cuff  Related Shoulder Pain
2. Glenohumeral Joint Instability
3. Capsular / Joint Disorders of the Shoulder
4. Differential Diagnosis
5. Predicting Prognosis

Target audience

This course is aimed at Physiotherapy and Physical Therapy clinicians, students and assistants. Other interested professionals such as athletic trainers, occupational therapists, nurses or medical doctors interested in this subject are also invited to participate.