Physiotherapy for shoulder pain

The main reason for shoulder pain is wrong posture or using one's shoulders in a wrong way while working. Such patients are on the rise nowadays due to working with computers or bending over the cell phone for long. Patients taking painkillers without consulting physicians risk irreparable damage of kidney, stomach and liver.

* There are some therapies and exercises that can help reduce the pain. Disks of the spine can be displaced and press on the nerves due to various injuries, bone erosion or not following proper rules while doing regular work. One may have acute pain in the back of the neck that can stretch towards the fingers with tingling sensation or numbness due to the pressure. In such cases, repeated retraction exercise can be done by placing a soft pillow below the neck lying on back.

*In case of acute shoulder pain along with abnormal muscle contraction, a patient is advised to do stretching exercises. Thermal therapies including the cold and heat therapies can be taken too.

*If severity of pain lessens, chin tuck exercises can be done sitting on a chair.

*If the pain stretches from the back of the neck to the hand, therapeutic exercise can be done turning your neck towards the shoulder in opposite side. In this exercise, muscles of the affected side stretch with cold therapy. Neurodynamics treatment can also be administered in some cases to reduce nerve contraction.

*Ehsanur Rahman is a physiotherapist.