The Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI) was developed to measure current shoulder pain and disability in an outpatient setting. The SPADI contains 13 items that assess two domains; a 5-item subscale that measures pain and an 8-item subscale that measures disability. There are two versions of the SPADI; the original version has each item scored on a visual analogue scale (VAS) and a second version has items scored on a numerical rating scale (NRS). The latter version was developed to make the tool easier to administer and score (Williams et al 1995). Both versions take less than five minutes to complete (Beaton et al 1996, Williams et al 1995). The questionnaire was developed and initially tested in a mixed diagnosis group of male patients presenting to ambulatory care reporting shoulder pain (Roach et al 1991). The SPADI has since been used in both primary care on mixed diagnosis (Beaton et al 1996, MacDermaid et al 2006) and surgical patient populations including rotator cuff disease (Ekeberg et al 2008), osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis (Christie et al 2010), adhesive capsulitis (Staples et al 2010, Tveita et al 2008), joint replacement surgery (Angst et al 2007), and in a large population-based study of shoulder symptoms (Hill et al 2011). The SPADI is available free of charge at several sites, eg, www.workcover.com/public/download.aspx?id=799. INSTRUCTIONS TO THE CLIENT AND SCORING: In the original version the patient was instructed to place a mark on the VAS for each item that best represented their experience of their shoulder problem over the last week (Roach et al 1991). Each subscale is summed and transformed to a score out of 100. A mean is taken of the two subscales to give a total score out of 100, higher score indicating greater impairment or disability. In the NRS version (Williams et al 1995) the VAS is replaced by a 0-10 scale and the patient is asked to circle the number that best describes the pain or disability. The total score is derived in exactly the same manner as the VAS version. In each subscale patients may mark one item only as not applicable and the item is omitted from the total score. If a patient marks more than two items as non applicable, no score is calculated (Roach et al 1991). RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY: Reproducibility of the SPADI in the original description was poor, with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.66. A more recent systematic review has found reliability coefficients of ICC ≥ 0.89 in a variety of patient populations (Roy et al 2009). Internal consistency is high with Cronbach α typically exceeding 0.90 (Roy et al 2009, Hill et al 2011). The SPADI demonstrates good construct validity, correlating well with other region-specific shoulder questionnaires (Paul et al 2004, Bot et al 2004, Roy et al 2009). It has been shown to be responsive to change over time, in a variety of patient populations and is able to discriminate adequately between patients with improving and deteriorating conditions (Beaton et al 1996, Williams et al 1995, Roy et al...

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Frozen shoulder (adhesive capsulitis) is a severe chronic pain condition that is not well understood and current treatment is suboptimal. In several other chronic pain conditions motor imagery and tactile acuity deficits are present, which are thought to represent associated neuroplastic changes. The aims of this study were to determine if motor imagery performance assessed by the left/right judgement task, and tactile acuity assessed by two-point discrimination, are altered in people with unilateral frozen shoulder. In this cross-sectional, prospective study eighteen adults diagnosed with frozen shoulder in a physiotherapy clinic setting completed a left/right judgement task, response times (RT) and accuracy for the left/right judgement task were determined. Next, tactile acuity over both shoulders was assessed with a novel, force-standardised two-point discrimination test. Results corresponding to the affected side were compared to the pain free shoulder; Left/right judgement task: mean RT (SD) corresponding to the affected shoulder was significantly slower than RT for the healthy shoulder (p = 0.031). There was no side-to-side difference in accuracy (p > 0.05). Neither RT nor accuracy was related to pain/disability scores or duration of symptoms (p > 0.05). Two-point discrimination: mean two-point discrimination threshold of the affected shoulder was significantly larger than the contralateral healthy shoulder (p < 0.001). Two-point discrimination threshold was not related to pain/disability scores or pain duration (p > 0.05); One explanation for these findings is altered sensorimotor processing and/or disrupted sensorimotor cortex representations of the affected shoulder. A case then exists for the use of treatments aimed at reversing these changes, training the brain to reduce chronic shoulder pain.