(intro music)
- Your shoulder has a very unique and complex design.
It's a ball-and-socket joint that allows
you a wide range of motion.
However, in order to maintain your motion,
you have to sacrifice some stability.
This combination of mobility and potential instability
often makes your shoulder vulnerable to pain and injury,
especially if all the parts of your shoulder
don't work properly together.
Today, we're going to talk about
rotator cuff tendinitis and impingement.
It's a very common shoulder problem,
often caused by repetitive motion.
You're going to learn where your
rotator cuff tendons are located
and how impingement develops.
What the primary two symptoms of rotator cuff
tendinitis and impingement are.
How to identify which of your daily activities
make your symptoms worse.
How to break that cycle of shoulder pain
with a few simple exercises.
What the tests are that are most important
in diagnosing rotator cuff tendinitis and impingement.
How to choose the best treatment options for you.
And finally, how to protect your shoulder
once you've eliminated your pain.
First, let's review the different parts of your shoulder,
and I'll show you how they all work together
to move your arm.
Let's look at the front view of the right shoulder.
We have the shoulder blade.
The socket, the ball that fits in the socket,
the arm that hangs from the ball.
Above the ball, we have two bones
that connect and form a joint.
The A for acromion, C for the long collarbone, or clavicle.
Just to orient you, here is your mouth,
nose, eyes and armpit.
On the side of the ball attaches a rope
which is called a tendon that then connects to a muscle.
The arrow indicates a muscle.
Here's your tendon, here's the muscle.
This tendon rotates your arm,
so we call it the rotator.
It forms this cuff as it attaches to the side of the ball,
hence the word "cuff".
And again, it's a tendon.
Remember that a tendon connects a muscle to the bone.
Up above, sitting like a roof, then, is bone.
Then, sitting between the tendon and the bone,
acting as a cushion, is a little sac,
with a little bit of fluid in it, that's called a bursa.
There we have the normal parts list.
Now, what happens in this condition
that we call impingement?
Impingement.
First of all, as we slide into middle age,
this acromium bone, "A",
can form some spurs on the end.
And in fact, you can have some spurs
on the end of the clavicle, as well.
Here's A, here's C.
The ball-and-socket usually stays in pretty good shape.
Here's the ball, the arm.
Then, this rotator cuff tendon has a tendency
to get pinched by the spur,
and can get swollen.
And underneath that spur, can get thinned out,
beat up a little bit, and sometimes
have a little partial tear.
Swollen, looking something like this.
The bursa sac gets swollen, pinched,
expands and looks like this.
What do we have then?
First of all, in this condition,
we have some bone spurs.
We have a rotator cuff tendon that's inflamed.
So, we call that a tendinitis.
And we may or may not have a partial tear.
The swollen, inflamed bursa, we call a bursitis.
Those are the conditions.
Bone spurs, bursitis, tendinitis, possible partial tear.
This condition is aggravated when we elevate the arm.
For instance, when we fall asleep at night
with our arm underneath our pillows.
Here's the ball, here is the arm that's elevated.
The socket, the bone spurs up above that don't move.
This is A, this is C.
Here is that rotator cuff that is beat up
and gets pinched even more,
and that bursa sac that also gets pinched even more.
And this results in increased pain.
Stars mean pain.
(outro music)