How To Treat A Rotator Cuff Injury
Tearing a rotator cuff is the most common tendon tear in the human body. It is painful and often requires surgery to fully recover from. But it doesn’t necessarily require you to go under the knife. A natural recover is possible if you are prepared to work with your physiotherapist and even more importantly to work within your bodies limitations.
Rotator cuff damage is common in athletes, both professional and amateur, but it can also be the result of years of continued wear and tear as the shoulder cap and the shoulder ball joint rub against each other. Physiotherapy is a good option in either case, and infact even where the surgery route is taken, physiotherapy should also be used to ensure the shoulder returns to it’s fully functional state before extreme pressure is applied to the joint again.
The physiotherapy course will center on being able to strengthen the tendons which remain intact and slowly allowing them to be able to take over the strain of a greater work load. The deltoid muscles are also focussed on and the end goal is to restore functional use of the shoulder and to relieve the pain associated with a tendon tear.
In fact the physiotherapy course is often more successful than an operation. operations commonly leave residual pain effects and the shoulder itself can still be quite limited in the motion available to it. To remove the last vestiges of pain and to restore full motion once again physiotherapy is required. The success rate of surgery is in the 85% range, while the remaining 15% will have residual pain and limited functionality to deal with. There is also a small chance(less that one percent) of an infection occurring, and neurological and anesthetic complications always need to be considered as well.
As with any severe injury, the best thing you can do is follow the advise of a professional and do everything within your power to develop and stick to an ongoing physiotherapy course. You need to be realistic about what limitations your condition will make on your life, and this can be the hardest part of a rotator cuff injury for some people who live a very independent lifestyle, or who rely on their body being fully functional to earn their income(such as professional athletes). It’s important in these instances that putting too much demand on the shoulder before it is fully healed is only likely to lead to another frustrating injury.