Shoulder Pain Talk

Hard Work Never Hurt Anyone: Or Did It?

Recent review of shoulder pain causes.  A recent article in Annals of Rheumatic Diseases authors, Bone and Tooper, looked at how prolonged exposure to repetitive activity at work can cause shoulder pain.  In their study, they noted that population based studies suggest a lifetime prevalence of over 70% for neck and shoulder pain.  The study also found that shoulder pain was second only to back pain and workers’ compensation insurance claims.  They also found that the risk of developing shoulder pain when starting a new job was related to the amount of lifting above someone’s head as well as exposure to monotonous work.  They concluded that shoulder pain is a common problem among working age adults and contributes importantly to sick leave. 

An association between workplace factors in such symptoms they noted that evidence continues to accumulate factors such as prolonged abnormal posture and repetition contribute markedly to shoulder pain. They also noted that more recent studies have considered the psycho-social influences such as monotony of work and the amount of stress might also contribute to shoulder pain.

In their conclusions, they call for more studies looking at psycho-social stressors as wells as repetative movement and how it can be modified in order to prevent further injuries to the shoulder in the workplace setting.

Causes of Shoulder Pain

Most shoulder problems involve the soft tissues, muscles, ligaments and tendons, rather than bones. And most of these problems fall into three major categories:

    * tendonitis/bursitis

    * injury/instability

    * arthritis

Other much more rare causes of shoulder pain are tumors, infection and nerve-related problems.