Patient outcomes from physical therapy comparable to those of surgery + PT
Shoulder injuries are pretty common, particularly injuries with the rotator cuff, a group of four muscles and their corresponding tendons that make it possible to move the arm out away from the side of the body and rotate the shoulder. A recent study, published in The Bone and Joint Journal, was conducted to see if physical therapy without surgery could be as effective at treating rotator cuff injuries as physical therapy combined with surgery, and the results may surprise you.
When studying non-traumatic tears of the supraspinatus (one of the four muscles with corresponding tendons that make up the rotator cuff), researchers found that long-term outcomes were very similar between patients who only underwent physical therapy treatments and those who had PT in addition to surgery. The study lasted twelve months; by the end of the study, the PT-only patients were 87% satisfied with their outcomes compared to 96% and 96% in the treatment groups that had different surgeries combined with therapy.
This is good news if you’re hoping to avoid surgery due to cost, recovery time, or personal preference. Unless you have a severe, traumatic injury to the rotator cuff that would require surgical repair, non-surgical physical therapy treatment can achieve a similar result at a lower cost and without the initial downtime that a surgical procedure would require.