Shoulder pain: physiotherapy patients who believe in their ability to move show better recovery

Patients’ belief in their ability to move despite having shoulder pain and their expectation of a positive outcome are associated with recovery from musculoskeletal pain with physiotherapy, an observational study has shown.1

Rachel Chester, lead study author from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, said, “Physiotherapy management is effective for many people with shoulder pain, but not everyone. We wanted to find out what factors predict why some people do better than others.”

Persistent musculoskeletal shoulder pain accounts for around 3% of visits to GPs every year. The pain can be disabling …