Scapula and humeral movement patterns and their relationship with pain: A preliminary investigation

Aims: Altered movement patterns may contribute to this shoulder pain following stroke. This article describes a study examining scapular and humeral movement patterns in people with hemiparetic shoulder pain (HSP), exploring the relationship between pain and these movement patterns. Methods: Kinematic data from nine participants with HSP and twelve matched controls were collected as they performed scapular plane shoulder elevation. Correlation analyses were used to examine relationships between participants' ratings of pain and kinematic data. Findings: The HSP group had decreased humeral external rotation compared to the control group. Despite a trend toward decreased scapular upward rotation, there was considerable variation in scapular upward rotation movement patterns across the participants with HSP. Scapular tilt was not different between groups. There was an inverse relationship between pain and scapular upward rotation, indicating that those with more pain had less scapular upward rotation. Conclusions: People with HSP demonstrated scapular and humeral movement patterns that differed from controls, where some of the altered movement patterns were related to reported pain levels. Rehabilitation management of people with HSP may be improved by careful assessment of scapulohumeral movement patterns and treatments aimed at normalizing these patterns.