Non-surgical Rehabilitation
When you begin rehabilitation at Momentum Health, our first goal will be to help control your pain and inflammation. Initial treatment is usually rest and anti-inflammatory medication, such as aspirin or ibuprofen. This medicine is used mainly to control pain. Treatments such as heat and ice are also used to ease pain and inflammation.
Our physiotherapist will then create an individualized program to help you regain shoulder function. We will use hands-on treatments and various types of exercises to improve the range of motion in your shoulder and nearby joints and muscles.
Later, we’ll begin strengthening exercises to improve the strength and control of your rotator cuff and shoulder blade muscles. Our physiotherapist will help you retrain these muscles to keep the ball of the humerus in the socket. This will help your shoulder move smoothly during all of your activities.
Our physiotherapist can also evaluate your workstation or the way you use your body when you do your activities and suggest changes to avoid further problems.
Although the time required for recovery varies, as a guideline you may need physiotherapy treatments for six to eight weeks. Most patients are able to get back to their activities with full use of their arm within this amount of time.
Post-surgical Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation after rotator cuff surgery can be a slow process. You will probably need to attend physiotherapy sessions for two to three months, and you should expect full recovery to take up to six months. Getting the shoulder moving as soon as possible is important. However, this must be balanced with the need to protect the healing tissues.
You will most likely have to wear a sling to support and protect the shoulder for several weeks (generally four to six weeks) after surgery. Your physiotherapist may use ice and electrical stimulation treatments during your first few physiotherapy sessions to help control pain and swelling from the surgery. Our physiotherapist may also use massage and other types of hands-on treatments to ease muscle spasm and pain.
Physiotherapy can progress quickly after arthroscopic procedures. Our treatments start out with range-of-motion exercises and gradually work into active stretching and strengthening. You just need to be careful about doing too much, too quickly.
Physiotherapy goes slower after surgeries where the front shoulder muscles have been cut. Our physiotherapist will start you on exercises with passive movements. During passive exercises, we move your shoulder joint, while your muscles stay relaxed. Our physiotherapist gently moves your joint and gradually stretches your arm. We may teach you how to do passive exercises at home as well.
Active physiotherapy usually starts six weeks after surgery. You use your own muscle power in active range-of-motion exercises. We may have you begin with light isometric strengthening exercises. These exercises work the muscles without straining the healing tissues. We will probably delay normal strengthening exercises until 12 weeks.
Exercises focus on improving the strength and control of the rotator cuff muscles and the muscles around the shoulder blade. Our physiotherapist will help you retrain these muscles to keep the ball of the humerus firmly in the socket. This helps your shoulder move smoothly during all your activities.
Some of the exercises you'll do are designed to get your shoulder working in ways that are similar to your work tasks and sport activities. Our physiotherapist will help you find ways to do your tasks that don't put too much stress on your shoulder. Before your physiotherapy sessions end, we will teach you a number of ways to avoid future problems.
If all of these efforts to improve your shoulder condition fail, our physiotherapist may refer your for surgical evaluation. There are a few other surgical options such as tendon grafts and muscle transfers, which may help you regain use of your shoulder. However, these procedures are very complex and are rarely necessary.
Momentum Health provides services for physiotherapy in Calgary.