Shoulder diseases as a result of wear or incorrect loading | Diseases of the shoulder

Shoulder diseases as a result of wear or incorrect loading

Shoulder arthrosis (omarthrosis) is one of the wear-related shoulder diseases. Shoulder arthrosis is characterized by cartilage consumption in the main shoulder joint. Known causes of shoulder arthrosis are mechanical overloading and damage to the rotator cuff.

The symptoms are rather uncharacteristic and manifest themselves as shoulder pain and restricted shoulder movement. Both conservative and surgical treatment methods can be considered. A calcified shoulder is a shoulder in which calcium has been deposited.

This occurs most frequently in the area of the tendon of the supraspinatus muscle, but in principle it can also affect any other tendon of the shoulder muscles. The result is an inflammatory process in the shoulder joint, which can lead to severe pain. There are various causes that can be considered for a calcified shoulder.

If there is cartilage damage, i.e. a kind of tear in the cartilage tissue, pain may occur, which may have to be treated. This can be a small tear, but it can also take on much larger dimensions under certain circumstances. The reasons for cartilage damage cannot always be clearly diagnosed.

It often manifests itself in the form of severe pain. There are two concretely different therapeutic approaches for cartilage damage in the shoulder joint: conservative and surgical. Impingement syndrome is a functional impairment of the shoulder joint that can occur as a result of chronic overloading, for example, in tennis or golf players, swimmers or throwers.

Often, however, no actual cause can be identified that triggers the disease; in these cases there is a constriction under the acromion due to the nature of the condition. Affected persons usually complain of moderate to severe pain in the shoulder. Frozen shoulder describes a temporary stiffening of one or both shoulders with severely restricted mobility, which is accompanied by a sticking together of the gliding layers of the shoulder joint.

The development of primary shoulder stiffness is still unknown. The treatment of shoulder stiffness is always conservative and aims at a gentle mobilization of the shoulder joint. The so-called shoulder girdle is formed by two bones on each side of the shoulder, i.e. by the two clavicles (claviculae) and shoulder blades (scapulae).

Together with the humerus, the scapula forms the shoulder joint. In addition, the scapula forms two bony projections, the acromion and the coracoid.The shoulder joint is mainly stabilized by four muscles and their tendons, the so-called rotator cuff. The four muscles (supraspinatus muscle, infraspinatus muscle, teres minor muscle and subscapularis muscle) move from the shoulder blade to the humerus, where they attach their tendons.

For this reason, they lie around the head of the humerus like a cuff and form a “roof” over the shoulder joint. The space below the acromion, the subacromial space, is often affected by wear and tear problems in the shoulder joint. A bursa facilitates the sliding process between the tendons and the bony acromion.

This can lead to shoulder pain due to inflammation, for example. The shoulder joint is primarily moved and mobilized by muscles and tendons, which results in a large range of motion. However, this increases the risk of instability and the shoulder joint is therefore easily injured.

The illustration below shows the upper arm with its humeral head and the shoulder blade from the front. You can see the relatively small area of the joint that connects both bones. In addition to the muscles, the upper arm has, among other things, a further aid to stabilization in the shoulder joint.

This consists of a cartilaginous lip that supports the spherical head of the humerus in the same way that a saucer with a small depression prevents a cup from slipping. This cartilage lip is called the labrum glenoidale. If a part of this cartilage lip is torn off, the shoulder joint will dislocate again and again, even without the use of force, because stability is impaired.

This link leads directly to the page about the therapy of the labrum glenoidale tear. The shoulder is a mainly muscle-guided joint. This means that the articulated joint consists mainly of muscles.

In contrast, the hip joint could be seen as a hip joint, where an important part of the stability of the hip joint is guaranteed by ligaments that are very strong and can withstand enormous forces. This muscle guidance proves to be a great advantage when considering the mobility gained through it. However, there is also a major disadvantage of this type of connection between two bones.

Compared to the hip joint, the stability is much lower and therefore the vulnerability of the shoulder joint is much greater. Looking at the type of diseases or injuries, three specific diagnoses are particularly striking because of their frequency. These are the Without appropriate expertise, no conclusions can be drawn as to the cause of these diseases, so an explanation will be given here.

  • Shoulder pain when moving the arm (impingement syndrome; pronounced “impindschment”)
  • Torn tendon of the deeper layers of the shoulder muscles (rotator cuff rupture)
  • Repeated dislocation of the shoulder (recurrent shoulder dislocation)