Research

Conservative treatment of the shoulder impingement syndrome

  • Hüseyin Botanlıoğlu
  • Hayrettin Kesmezacar
  • Rıfat Erginer
  • Muharrem Babacan

Received Date: 09.11.2005 Accepted Date: 17.11.2006 Gulhane Med J 2006;48(4):208-214

Rotator cuff diseases are a common reason of shoulder pain. Impingement syndrome is one of the cuff diseases. Painful shoulder and limited range of motion are frequently observed in patients with impingement syndrome. Conservative treatments, in addition to surgical ones, have a great importance in the treatment of impingement syndrome. This treatment provides decrease in the pain and improvement in the range of shoulder motion. These treatment modalities are succesfully performed in the early stages of impingement syndrome. In this study we evaluated the conservative treatment results of 25 patients who were diagnosed to have impingement syndrome after applying to our clinic with shoulder pain. Cases had a mean age of 49.12 years (range 29 to 65 years), 17 and 8 eight of them were female and male, respectively, and the mean follow up period was 4.5 months (range 3 to 7 months). Symptoms of all the patients with stage 1 or stage 2 tendon injury regressed. The mean pretreatment Constant and Murley shoulder score was 57.9 (range 6 to 98), whereas the posttreatment one was 88.4 (range 20 to 100). We suggest that conservative treatment is a succesful treatment modality in the early stages of patients with impingement syndrome.

Keywords: Impingement syndrome