103 patients with pain & stiff shoulder were followed up closely for 3 months to assess the effect of conservative treatment with intraarticular steroids, thermal therapy and therapeutic exercises, Patients with other recognized causes of stroke, Parkinsonism, diabetes mellitus, hyperthyroidism, myocardial infarction were exclued.
The subjects were 46 males and 57 females, the age range was 21 to 71 years (mean 54.3 years), and duration for condition at presentation was 1 to 50 months (mean 7 months).
The painful stiff shoulder involved the dominant arm in 51.5%, and 9.7% patients became bilateral. The onset was spontaneous in 73 cases and followed by minor trauma in 30 cases. The housewives were 37 cases in female and 29 cases were desk worker in male.
Clinical assessment was performed before and after treatment with pain score on 10 cm visual analogue scales and the range of shoulder movement was measured according to the method of Norkin & White in passive movement only.
The results were as follows;
1) In patients who took more than 10 days of treatment, the pain was reduced from 10 to 2.9 in self pain assessment scale and the range of motion increased by 36.4 in flexion, 40 in abduction, 16.4 in internal rotation and 20.6 in external rotation.
2) In patients, who's duration of symptom was less than 10 weeks, the pain was reduced form 10 to 4.1 in self pain assessment scale and the range of motion was increased by 26.4 in flexion. 29.6 in abduction, 14.3 in internal rotation and 12.5 in external rotation.
3) Subjective pain decrement was earlier effect and predominant finding than the changes in range of motion.
