Rotator Cuff Tears Research Paper

Rotator cuff tears are debilitating injuries that can take months from which to fully heal and recover. Thus, medical professionals want to use the most effective treatments to help patients return to normal life as fast as possible. One main treatment for rotator cuff tears is physical therapy designed to increase range of motion and then strengthen surrounding muscles to maintain that recovered range of motion. To measure growth and recovery in a objective fashion, tests over range of motion and strength are conducted regularly throughout treatment.
This study will be focusing upon the range of motion and strength of shoulder flexion and abduction. Cite stuff
Introduction to Rotator Cuff Tears
Rotator cuff tears are tendinous tears of the muscles of the rotator cuff, most often involving the supraspinatus and infraspinatus tendons (Kim et al., 2010). There are two types of rotator cuff tears, partial-thickness and full-thickness (Edwards et al., 2016). Rotator cuff tears are also split into two causes of injury, with a conditional combination of the two, and four sizes, with those being small, medium, large, and massive-sized tears (Itoi, 2013). The main causes of injury of rotator cuff tears are chronic and acute, with the conditional type being acute on chronic. Types of rotator cuff tears. Rotator cuff tears are …show more content…
While the tear was a large-sized full-thickness tear, one not expected to perform so well undergoing only physical therapy, this study was a case study, which limits the generalizability. Another study by Zhang et al. (2017) found that physical therapy after surgery improved the abduction strength of individuals steadily in a study involving 132 patients. However, this study used three-month intervals between progress measurements, which may skew the results to show better improvement than actually