Abstract
Study design:
Clinical and radiographic evaluation of the shoulders of tetraplegic and paraplegic patients who attend rehabilitation program.
Objectives:
The objective of this study is to establish the usefulness of radiography as a trial exam for shoulder pain in spinal cord injured patients.
Setting:
Hospital das Clinicas—UNICAMP. Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Methods:
Thirty-two shoulders of 16 patients were evaluated by clinical exam and radiography. Patients were divided into two groups: paraplegic and tetraplegic. A control group of 16 normal volunteer subjects was selected.
Results:
Shoulder pain was reported in 88.89% of tetraplegic and 42.85% of paraplegic. The time of injury ranged from 1.5–22 years (mean 7.88 years); patients had a mean age of 34.68 years (range, 21–57 years). The acromioclavicular joint (ACJ) space ranged from 0.03–0.7 cm on the right side and 0.15–0.7 cm on the left side, with a mean of 0.37 and 0.41 cm, respectively. No correlation was found between shoulder pain and gender, age or time since injury. There was a trend to correlation between shoulder pain and type of injury with tetraplegic having a tendency to pain symptoms. On average, tetraplegic had smaller ACJ.
Conclusions:
The small number of patients in this study did not allow us to confirm the hypothesis that X-ray finding may indicate risk for shoulder pain in spinal cord injury patients. A work with a greater number of subjects could demonstrate association between shoulder pain and the reduced acromioclavicular distance, making plain radiography a trial exam for spinal cord-injured patients.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the State of Sao Paulo Foundation for Research—FAPESP.
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Medina, G., Nascimento, F., Rimkus, C. et al. Clinical and radiographic evaluation of the shoulder of spinal cord injured patients undergoing rehabilitation program. Spinal Cord 49, 1055–1061 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/sc.2011.64
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sc.2011.64
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