Supervised therapy may be more effective vs. home therapy for rotator cuff rehabilitation

Supervised therapy may be more effective vs. home therapy for rotator cuff rehabilitation

August 21, 2024

1 min read


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Key takeaways:

  • Rotator cuff rehabilitation supervised by a physical therapist in the clinic may be more effective than self-performed therapy at home.
  • Both groups had significant improvements in all outcome measures.

Published results showed rotator cuff rehabilitation exercises supervised by a physical therapist in the clinic may more effectively reduce pain and improve range of motion vs. self-performed therapy at home.

Tansu Birinci Olgun, PT, PhD, from the division of physiotherapy and rehabilitation at Istanbul Medeniyet University in Turkey, and colleagues performed a prospective, single-blind, randomized controlled trial of 70 patients (mean age, 50.1 years) who had non-traumatic partial-thickness rotator cuff tears and no plans for surgery.



Shoulder doctor

Rotator cuff rehabilitation supervised by a physical therapist in the clinic may be more effective than self-performed therapy at home. Image: Adobe Stock

Olgun and colleagues randomly assigned 35 patients to receive professionally supervised therapy in a rehabilitation clinic and 35 patients to perform self-supervised therapy at home. The 8-week intervention consisted of two sessions per day, totaling 16 sessions. Patients who completed at least 13 sessions were included in the analysis, according to the study.

Olgun and colleagues found both groups had significant improvements in all outcome measures after the 8-week intervention. However, they found patients who received supervised therapy had significant group-by-time interaction for VAS activity scores, shoulder flexion, shoulder abduction, active range of motion and pain catastrophizing scores.

Overall, 85% of patients (n = 30) who received supervised therapy and 60% of patients (n = 21) who performed at-home therapy reported having significant improvements.

“This can be interpreted as the importance of physiotherapist-supervised exercise programs,” Olgun and colleagues wrote in the study. “Patients with high pain catastrophizing may benefit most from a physiotherapist-supervised exercise program, which might enhance their ability or willingness to perform exercises independently.”

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