In order to assess current conservative physiotherapy strategies we assessed all primary care referrals for frozen shoulder to our physiotherapy department over a 12-month period.17% of referrals met the criteria of a diagnosis of primary idiopathic frozen shoulder. 75 patients where randomly assigned one of three groups: group exercise class, individual multimodal physiotherapy and home exercises alone. All participants received education about frozen shoulder, advice on sleep, posture and pain relief. A single independent physiotherapist, who was blinded to the treatment groups, made all assessments. The Constant Score, Oxford Shoulder Score and SF-36 outcome measures were performed at baseline, six weeks, six months and one year. The Exercise Class lead to a significant improvement in shoulder symptoms and that this was greater than individual multimodal physiotherapy or home exercises alone with both Oxford and Constant scores. These findings were not demonstrated with the SF-36. This study demonstrates that a hospital based exercise class produces rapid recovery from a frozen shoulder with a minimum number of visits to the hospital and was more effective than individual physiotherapy or a home exercise programme. We would not recommend SF-36 as a valid patient reported outcome measure for the use in shoulder pathology.

No abstract

No abstract