Elsevier

Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery

Volume 15, Issue 1, January–February 2006, Pages 30-39
Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery

Original article
Deficits in shoulder function and general health associated with sixteen common shoulder diagnoses: A study of 2674 patients

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jse.2005.04.006Get rights and content

The purpose of this study is to define the self-assessed deficits in function and general health perceived by a large cohort of patients with common shoulder diagnoses. For a 10-year period, all new shoulder patients presenting to the senior author were characterized by diagnosis, age, gender, and self-assessed shoulder function and general health status. This report concerns the 2674 patients having 1 of the 16 most prevalent diagnoses. The deficits in shoulder function and health status were correlated with diagnosis, age, and gender, as well as with each other. Patient self-assessment provided a standardized method for collecting data on shoulder function and health status. These assessments revealed substantial deficits; for example, 81% of patients were unable to sleep on the affected side, and 71% were unable to wash the back of the opposite shoulder. The magnitude of these deficits correlated significantly with gender and diagnosis but not with age.

Section snippets

Study population

In January 1991 the senior author established a registry of all new shoulder patients seen in his office. All patients had a history, a physical examination, and radiographs. Shoulders suspected of having cuff pathology were imaged by either magnetic resonance imaging or ultrasound performed by specially trained shoulder sonographers. Because in our center the accuracy of the two techniques is essentially the same, the choice was made largely on the basis of patient convenience. Each patient

Results

Table II shows the 16 diagnoses, the number of patients with each diagnosis, the mean and SD values for patient age, and the gender distribution. The data in this table suggest that those patients with instability characteristically present to specialists around age 20 to 35 years. Patients with full-thickness cuff tears present 15 years later than those with partial cuff lesions; those with cuff tear arthropathy present 13 years later than those with full-thickness cuff tears. Interestingly,

Discussion

This is the most extensive reported investigation of the self-assessed functional and health status deficits of patients with disorders of the shoulder. It clearly demonstrates the profound deficits in substantial numbers of patients having 1 of 16 common shoulder diagnoses. The combination of the SST, a shoulder-specific functional inventory, and the SF-36, a general health status assessment, provide both local and systemic evaluations of the patient, as is recommended by Beaton and Richards3

References (39)

  • K.L. Smith et al.

    A prospective, multipractice study of shoulder function and health status in patients with documented rotator cuff tears

    J Shoulder Elbow Surg

    (2000)
  • N.F. SooHoo et al.

    Evaluation of the construct validity of the DASH questionnaire by correlation to the SF-36

    J Hand Surg [Am]

    (2002)
  • R.W. Viola et al.

    Do shoulder patients insured by workers’ compensation present with worse self-assessed function and health status?

    J Shoulder Elbow Surg

    (2000)
  • M.T. Vogt et al.

    Neck and shoulder pain in 70- to 79-year-old men and womenfindings from the Health, Aging and Body Composition Study

    Spine J

    (2003)
  • E.M. Watson et al.

    Outcome of rotator cuff repair

    J Shoulder Elbow Surg

    (2002)
  • J. Antoniou et al.

    Capsulolabral augmentation for the management of posteroinferior instability of the shoulder

    J Bone Joint Surg Am

    (2000)
  • I. Atroshi et al.

    Primary care patients with musculoskeletal pain. Value of health-status and sense-of-coherence measures in predicting long-term work disability

    Scand J Rheumatol

    (2002)
  • D.E. Beaton et al.

    Measuring function of the shoulder. A cross-sectional comparison of five questionnaires

    J Bone Joint Surg Am

    (1996)
  • S. Chrubasik et al.

    A survey on pain complaints and health care utilization in a German population sample

    Eur J Anaesthesiol

    (1998)
  • Cited by (0)

    This work was supported by the Douglas T. Harryman JI/DePuy Endowed Chair for Shoulder Research at the University of Washington.

    View full text