Impingement Syndrome: Pain in the Shoulder Joint

If your shoulder hurts when you lift your arm, the cause may be impingement syndrome. Impingement syndrome is a so-called bottleneck syndrome at the shoulder joint. It causes pain because the head of the humerus pushes against part of the shoulder plate (acromion). This constricts the space for tendons and muscles and therefore hurts, especially during stress and movement. If symptoms persist for a long time, the tendons may even tear, which is then called a rotator cuff defect or rupture.

Impingement syndrome: many names – one disease

There are a number of other technical terms for impingement syndrome, but they describe the same clinical picture. These include:

  • Subacromial syndrome
  • Subacromial narrowing syndrome and
  • Subacromial impingement

Causes of pain in impingement syndrome.

Typically, impingement syndrome is not preceded by an acute injury to the shoulder, particularly pain and restricted range of motion:

  • On the other hand, there is often a long-standing overload, for example, through sports such as badminton, swimming or throwing sports, or through professional activities.
  • This in turn can be causes of overload or dysfunction of the shoulder muscles, especially the rotator cuff.
  • Another cause may be a general age-related wear and tear of the joint, such as osteoarthritis.
  • Other causes of pain are a predisposed already narrow joint space, which favors the occurrence of impingement syndrome.

Physiotherapy and medication for therapy

For the therapy of impingement syndrome offer on the one hand medication and on the other hand physiotherapy with muscle strengthening and cold or heat treatments. For acute pain, cold is soothing, and for chronic pain, heat is soothing. In general, it is recommended to consult a doctor before any self-therapy if the above-mentioned symptoms occur. Afterwards, if the diagnosis has been made, exercises can be learned with the help of a physiotherapist and then continued at home. To support the muscles, it can help to tape the overstrained muscles. However, strengthening exercises rehearsed by physical therapy usually remain as the most important treatment measure. Impingement syndrome – 8 exercises for the shoulder.

Impingement syndrome: shoulder surgery may be necessary.

If the pain is very severe and physiotherapy and agents such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen no longer help, shoulder surgery may also be necessary. However, about four out of five patients affected by impingement syndrome can be treated without shoulder surgery. With the help of exercises and physiotherapy, those affected can get a good grip on the pain. If surgery is necessary, it is often sufficient to perform an arthroscopy to create sufficient space in the joint space of the shoulder or to reconnect torn muscle tendons. In some cases, however, this may require open shoulder surgery.

Impingement exercises to strengthen the shoulder

We present two exercises to strengthen and stabilize the shoulder muscles, which can be performed with the help of a theraband. For both, the starting position is the same: stand comfortably with your feet about 20 inches apart. 1st exercise against impingement syndrome:

  1. Place the theraband under your feet and take the ends in each of your right and left hands, hanging down the side of your body.
  2. Then move your arms sideways away from your body until they reach about 90 degrees.
  3. The direction in which the arms are moved away from the body is welcome to vary, at best a mixture between sideways away from the body and slightly forward, in front of the body.
  4. During the exercise, make sure to point the thumb upwards and remain standing straight.
  5. Then return to the starting position and repeat the exercise several times in a row.

2nd exercise against impingement syndrome:

  1. Bring your arms to a horizontal position so that the left upper arm, shoulder area and right upper arm form a line.
  2. Then bend your arms at the elbow joint so that there is a 90-degree angle here.
  3. Hold this position and slowly count to ten.
  4. Then put your hands down to relax, count to five and start the exercise again.
  5. Also vary the direction in which your forearms point, for example, in the first round pointing directly up, in second round twisted 90 degrees pointing directly forward, and in third round pointing directly down.