An Introduction to Scapulothoracic Assessment

Overview:

Clinicians see them every day. Patients with a chronic “shoulder” problem.  Often, these are very difficult patients to treat because they struggle with perplexing symptoms and no specific diagnosis has been confirmed.

Perhaps some of these “mysterious” shoulder patients are struggling with a problem that is not really a shoulder problem…

Because the scapulothoracic region remains one of the most complex and poorly understood joints of the body, we often overlook it when performing musculoskeletal assessment of the neck and or shoulder.

There is currently no standardized assessment tool that can direct us to a useful diagnosis in this region, and only the most extreme scapular deformities are seen and recognized as “scapular winging”.

Janet Delorme had worked as an orthopedic manual and manipulative therapist for over thirty years, but it was her personal experience with a scapulothoracic injury ten years ago, that has led her to develop a simple, three step assessment algorithm that can be used along with any standardized shoulder and or neck assessment.

Learning Objectives:

In this introductory course, Janet examines the current “shoulder assessment” process, and she provides insight as to WHY scapulothoracic conditions are not currently being recognized.

She hopes that by watching this introductory online course, clinicians will:

1. Start to learn how to recognize a patient with a scapulothoracic condition.
   
   
2. Understand the important role of the ARM ATTACHMENT MECHANISM and why it needs to be assessed independently – it is not “the shoulder”.
   
   
3. Understand scapular mechanics – one of many pieces of “knowledge” necessary for ANY clinician who wants to learn these three simple steps. The three steps are simple but understanding the “backstory” or background information leading up to the assessment is essential. Scapular mechanics is an important first step.