Clinical Guidelines for Shoulder Pain

Current clinical guidelines for low back pain and neck pain recommend that education address patients' concerns, provide reassurance, encourage activity, and discuss prognosis, but no comparable guideline exists for rotator cuff-related shoulder pain. A review of nine guidelines found that only one recommended education on resuming daily activities, and no guideline specified content or delivery method. Clinical guidelines for rotator cuff-related shoulder pain provide almost no direction on what education should contain. This is the first study to examine perceptions of best practice versus structure-focused education specifically for rotator cuff-related shoulder pain.