Functional and Clinical Screening Assesment of the Shoulder Complex A New Methodological Model for Injury Management

Overview

Work-related injuries of the shoulder complex represent a challenge for clinicians due to the large variety of clinical entities involved and the broad anatomic structures that are potentially affected. Furthermore, commonly performed orthopedic tests have demonstrated limited accuracy for the actual diagnosis of the injury. Although considerable research has been performed to standardize a model for shoulder injury management, a comprehensive approach integrating both a clinical and functional based status of the pathology and adapted rehabilitation prescription remains lacking. The present study protocol aims to complement previously published shoulder injury management algorithms. Potentially, the multi-component, individualized and progressive multi-etiologic shoulder injury management model for rehabilitation could become a new effective strategy for reducing the time required to regain functional capacity and symptom recovery among patients with work-related shoulder injuries.

The patient will be attended by an occupational physician who specializes in work-related injuries. Following medical diagnosis and supplementary evaluations where requested (i.e., radiological examination), the patient will be referred to the rehabilitation service. Before initiating the physiotherapeutic rehabilitation program, the patient will undergo a comprehensive functional screening at the biomechanics laboratory. Using a decision-making scheme, the identified functional deficits will be used to customize the individual rehabilitation plan.Registry procedures will be monitorized in a customized Microsoft excel spreadsheet which would record the code of patient episode (i.e. 20170001) as well as the number of the first medical and laboratory examination and the code of the therapist responsible of the rehabilitation. Twice a week an investigator (I.S) will check the report in order to assure proper patient rehabilitation course as well as claiming that pre and post laboratory and medical examinations are made. Completed episodes will be moved to another archive as "successfully completed" whereas in completed ones will be moved to another archive as "unsuccessfully completed". From that register efficacy data with regards to complete rehabilitation management model implementation rate will be calculated and reported apart from the outcome variables. The obtained results in terms of number of rehabilitation sessions performed and number of working day loss will be compared along with historical cohorts of the same medical institution