Shoulder pain is common and can have many causes. Whether you injured your shoulder in a fall or while playing sports, or hurt your shoulder overdoing it on a home task like painting, shoulder pain can have a major impact on your quality of life. Shoulder injuries can cause pain, disrupt your sleep and affect your shoulder and arm function. Massage therapy is effective in helping people to reduce their shoulder pain, especially immediately after treatment, though there is some evidence for long-term benefit as well.
Massage therapy is even more likely to be effective to help reduce shoulder pain when combined with regular exercises, which can be recommended by an RMT. Manual therapy directed towards the glenohumeral joint for painful shoulder conditions can be effective in reducing shoulder pain measures such as pain level, which can ultimately have a positive impact on quality of life as well. Improving Function Massage therapy can also be effective for improving shoulder range of motion, especially flexion and abduction.
Shoulder impingement syndrome is especially common in overhead athletes, which includes sports where the athlete propels the ball to the opposing team like baseball and volleyball. Massage therapy combined with resistance exercises helps these athletes improve strength in affected shoulder muscles. Many people with shoulder pain also experience difficulty with their shoulder function, and manual therapy can increase both active and passive mobility of the shoulder.
In addition to people being able to move their shoulder more easily after manual therapy treatment, they also have more willingness to move their shoulder and have an improved overall quality of life. Frozen shoulder Adhesive capsulitis, more commonly known as frozen shoulder, is characterized by stiffness and pain in your shoulder joint.
Manual shoulder mobilizations performed by a health professional like an RMT and stretching or other exercise you can do at home, which your RMT can recommend, are effective pain management strategies if you have frozen shoulder.
