(upbeat music)
- The rotator cuff tendons are important
for proper function of your shoulder.
These tendons help move your shoulder
throughout it's wide range of motion.
Since every motion of the shoulder uses these tendons,
over time this leads to wear and tear of the rotator cuff.
Injury or degeneration of the tendons
often leads to a very painful and weak shoulder.
Rotator cuff tears can occur at any age.
But are increasingly more common by middle age.
Today we're going to talk about rotator cuff tears.
It's a common cause of pain and weakness of your shoulder.
You're going to learn, first of all,
how does a rotator cuff tear develop?
Then, what does a tear feel like
and what activities cause it to tear?
What are the best ways to determine
if you have a rotator cuff tear?
Well what happens during and after surgery
to eliminate your pain?
And finally, how do you prevent and protect
against future rotator cuff tears?
Let's take a look at the different parts list
of your shoulder and see how they all work
together to move your arm.
We start with the shoulder blade.
This is the socket.
This is the ball that fits in the socket.
This is the arm.
Above the ball we have two bones that connect.
Bone A connects to bone C and forms a joint.
Just to orient you, here's the mouth, nose, eyes.
Here's your armpit.
On the side of the ball is a rope
that pulls in this direction because it's connected
to a muscle.
This rope rotates your arm,
so we call it the rotator.
It forms a cuff where it attaches to the side of the ball.
Hence the word cuff.
And it's a tendon.
A tendon is a rope like structure that connects a muscle.
The arrow is supposed to be a muscle.
To the bone.
Again, up above we have sitting like a roof
two bones, the acromion bone A,
connected to the collar bone C.
So these are the bones.
Now what happens with
a tear is the following.
First of all, we find that bone A
usually develops a rather significant spur like this.
And bone C will also have some spurs.
So this is A, this is C.
The ball and socket
often stay in pretty good shape like this.
And the rotator cuff gets pinched underneath this spur.
So that rotator cuff gets swollen.
Underneath the spur it thins out.
Swollen.
And then one day it finally tears through.
So that we end up with one end here
and the other end here.
So, this is your
bones spurs.
And your torn
rotator cuff
tendon.
Occasionally, this tear may not be picked up for a while
or diagnosed for a while.
And the muscle can keep separating the two ends.
As a result,
we can see, again, the ball and socket.
The arm.
And now one end of the tear is here.
The other end is way over here.
And stuck down in scar tissue.
This is a much more serious
and difficult tear to repair.
I should also mention, that occasionaly
there is no large spur,
but just
a bone A that has kind of a hook on it.
Like this.
So this is A, this is C.
And if a person takes a hard fall on a shoulder like this,
even if they are a younger person
like a young athlete.
You can also tear acutely
that rotator cuff tendon.
So, in summary then,
we have the normal parts list.
We have a situation where bone spurs
and a resulting rotator cuff tendon tear occur.
So this is a torn
rotator cuff
tendon.
Sometimes the ends are quite significantly separated.
And occasionally you'll have this torn tendon
occur in a younger patient such as an athlete
who may not have a spur, but a hook,
and takes a very hard fall that tears the tendon.
(upbeat music)