Physiotherapists in Warrington treat many different conditions including the issues profiled below.

Rotator Cuff Tears

The rotator cuff is the stabilising group of muscles which maintain the precise relationship between the head of the arm bone and the shoulder socket. They travel from the shoulder blade and pass towards the head of the humerus, become more tendon like as they go until they insert into the bony protuberance on the outside of the humeral head, known as the greater tuberosity. Rotator cuff dysfunction is common and can be secondary to trauma but is much more commonly due to the effects of age. .Grey hair equals cuff tear. is a surgeon.s saying when an older person presents with shoulder pain.

The rotator cuff tendons change with time and may suffer from areas of reduced blood supply due to anatomical and impingement factors, increasing the likelihood of tears developing and reducing its ability to heal. Tears can vary from small splits in one tendon to huge tears in the whole of the tendon sheet of the combined rotator cuff with complete dysfunction of the shoulder complex. Pain can be considerable apart from the inability to raise the arm against gravity and sleep can be badly affected. Rotator cuff repair can be performed for most tears but the process is painful and takes many months to rehabilitate.

Physiotherapy Shoulder Exercises after Breast Cancer Operation

Breast cancer is the commonest cancer in women and in England there are over 36,000 people diagnosed yearly. Treatment is complex but surgery is common to remove the tumour and to remove four or more lymph nodes in the axilla or armpit. This is to work out what stage the cancer is at and prevent it recurring in the axilla. A side effect of this treatment is the development of swelling in the affected arm, known as lymphoedema, which can remain over time and cause physical and psychological problems. Physiotherapists routinely assess and treat patients with cancer, pre or post operatively, to manage the mobility and joint problems which develop after diagnosis and treatment.

Removal of the axillary nodes impacts upon movement of the shoulder as the tissues in the axilla are stretched by raising the arm above the head. A paper in Physiotherapy (December 2008) by Todd and co-workers compared two groups of post operative patients, with one group having unrestricted shoulder movement after 48 hours and the other with this delayed for seven days. The results showed that delaying the movement for seven days avoided the incidence of increased arm lymphoedema, an important consideration as the level of swelling can remain long term.