RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Dose-Response Effect of Medical Exercise Therapy on Impairment in Patients with Unilateral Longstanding Subacromial Pain
Håvard Østerås*, 1, Tom Arild Torstensen2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2010Volume: 4
First Page: 1
Last Page: 6
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-4-1
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001004010001
Article History:
Received Date: 13/11/2009Revision Received Date: 3/12/2009
Acceptance Date: 4/12/2009
Electronic publication date: 5/1/2010
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/) which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Objectives:
The primary aim of this study was to investigate the effect of medical exercise therapy in shoulder impingement patients, along with possible correlations between impairment variables.
Study Design:
A prospective unblended randomized clinical trial.
Methods:
Over four months, 61 participants were randomly assigned into a high-graded exercise therapy group (HD) (n=31) and into a low-graded exercise therapy group (LD) (n=30). Prognostic variables were similar between the groups at baseline. Five (8%) patients dropped out during the treatment period, and another four (6%) dropped out before followup. Pain was a composite score of a visual analogue scale (VAS). Isometric strength was measured during four resisted break tests on the shoulder. Function was measured by means of a functional assessment questionnaire (Shoulder Rating Questionnaire, SRQ). Both groups trained three times per week for twelve weeks, with tests pre- and posttraining and six months follow-up.
Results:
The HD group achieved significantly (p < 0.05) better outcome effects than the LD group for pain, range of motion, isometric functional strength and function, but both groups increased function from pretest to posttest.
Conclusions:
In patients with uncomplicated subacromial pain syndrome, medical exercise therapy is an efficient treatment alternative, where high-grade doses should be emphasized. A major limitation is that the measurements were not undertaken by another person than the treating physiotherapists.
