Is there an association between changes in pain or function with changes in scapular dyskinesis: A prospective cohort study

Abstract

Objective: To assess the association between changes in pain or function with changes in scapular dyskinesis in participants with subacromial shoulder pain. Method: Forty-four participants with subacromial shoulder pain were assessed at baseline and 8 weeks later. The outcome measures included ‘pain at rest’ and ‘pain during movement’ using Numeric Pain Rating Scale (NPRS), shoulder function using Patient Specific Functional Scale (PSFS), and observation of scapular movement pattern using the scapular dyskinesis test. Robust paired t-tests were used to compare scores between baseline and follow-up. Repeated measures correlation coefficient was used to assess the association between changes in pain or function with changes in scapular dyskinesis scores. Results: A fair association was found between improvement in function and improvement in scapular dyskinesis (correlation coefficient = −0.4, 95% CI: −0.6 to −0.1). No associations were found between changes in ‘pain at rest’ (correlation coefficient = −0.1, 95% CI: −0.2 to 0.2) or ‘pain during movement’ (correlation coefficient = 0.28, 95% CI: 0.0 to 0.5) with changes in scapular dyskinesis. Conclusion: Our findings showed improvement in function is associated with improvement in scapular dyskinesis scores. Future studies should explore whether there is causal effect between improvement in scapular dyskinesis and function.