Yutaka Adachi

Shoulder Pain of Quadriplegic Patient

Fourty two patients with cervical spinal cord injury were studied about their shoulder pain and contracture.It the patient had shoulder pain, further study was done about characteristic of pain, its duration, and reference between pain or contracture and injured level of spinal cord.Twenty four cases out of 42 cases (57%) had shoulder pain.Most of them were suffered from severe joint contracture, and there was tendency that the patient with higher level injury of the spinal cord had more problems of shoulder.We recommened the early passive mobilization of the shoulder and the proper positioning of arm on the bed (neutral rotation, the shoulder in 90 degree abduction) to prevent the shoulder problem in cervical spinal cord injured patient.