“Recently, I have been having difficulty lifting my arm above my head due to both pain and weakness. This particularly makes my job as a painter difficult as majority of my work is done overhead. I notice the pain is also worse at the end of the day and at night when sleeping on that side. What have I done? I don't remember any incident that would have triggered the shoulder pain.”
The shoulder is a complex joint that allows for a large degree of movement to help us accomplish our daily tasks in life. The rotator cuff is a group of muscles and tendons that keep the ball (head) of your upper arm in its socket to create the shoulder joint. These four muscles (subscapularis, teres minor, supraspinatus, and infraspinatus) help you raise and rotate your arm and contribute to the overall stability of your shoulder.
Pain and pathology in either of these four muscles can present as an overuse injury of the tendon (tendinopathy) that can become progressively more painful over time and can appear as pain in your shoulder that has come out of nowhere. Alternatively, rotator cuff pathology can also happen in sport or a traumatic event such as falling that can cause a tear in one of the muscles in the rotator cuff. Rotator cuff tendinopathy typically presents as Pain with overhead activities (throwing / swimming / painting) where activities under 90° of elevation are typically pain free.
Your local physiotherapist can help rehabilitate a shoulder injury regardless of how long your pain has been persisting for. A rehabilitation plan typically exists in two stages: first, a symptom management phase where you’ll learn how to manage and diminish your pain while restoring the normal movements of your shoulder joint. Second, a targeted strengthening phase where you will improve your shoulder stability and its ability to cope with the long working hours or sporting demands that exist in your life.
Olivia Yin, APA Physiotherapist @ Evado Studios Point Cook