There are many patients who complain of shoulder pain with stiffness. Sadly therse patients are often neglected by many physicians. An effective treatment is necessary in clinical practice. In our pain clinc, the fifty patients who were diagnosed
frozen
shoulder were randomly selected and followed up from Oct. 1992 to Mar. 1993. Important factors affecting outcome include; time from onset of pain and stiffness until treatment, initial severtiy of the pain and stiffness.
We found that appropriate treatment led overall to improved patient satisfaction.
The results are as follows.
For patients treated within 3 weeks of syndrome occurrence, the recovery rate was in excess of 80%. but, if the patients had suffered for more than 6 months prior to treatment, the recovery rate was below 70%. for problems present in excess of
six
years
only slight improvement was observed. These patients were difficult to manage.
If the condition of patients was class I, the recovery rate was 94.4%. But in the cases of class III, only 25% of patients were recovered.
From our results, we believe that early treatment is the best choice in management of frozen shoulder patients.
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