Shoulder Rehabilitation: What's new from a scientific and clinical point of view?

Level III

The part 3 shoulder course is a practical workshop in which a variety of shoulder cases is presented. General take home message for the course: 

“Bad exercises do not exist, it is the challenge the find the right exercise for the right patient at the right time”.

Content:

For each clinical case, physical examination, including diagnostic tests and symptom modification procedure, clinical reasoning, and treatment strategies are discussed. Practical skills in clinical exam, exercises, and manual techniques are trained. The purpose of the course is to refresh knowledge, insights and skills from the 2 previous courses, and to update the participants with the most recent literature.

Since the course content is based on the levels 1 and 2, it is advised participants have completed both courses 1 and 2. However, this is not obligatory.

The course is intended to be very interactive, clinically applicable, with very limited theoretical sessions. The 8 cases discussed are: (1) rotator cuff tendinopathy, (2) rotator cuff tear – conservative treatment, (3) biceps related pathology, (4) anterior instability in the overhead athlete, (5) multidirectional instability, (6) scapular dysfunction in the overhead athlete, (7) scapular winging – type II, and (8) nerve pathology n. thoracicus longus. For each case practical take-home messages are formulated.

Goals:

After completion of this course, the participant will have reached the following competences:

• The participant has updated insights in the most common pathologies of the shoulder girdle, including rotator cuff tendinopathy, rotator cuff tears, traumatic, atraumatic and acquired shoulder instability, including Ehler Danlos Syndrome, scapular dyskinesis, nerve pathology of the accessory, long thoracic, and suprascapularis nerves, the sporting shoulder and throwing related shoulder pain.
• The participant can apply clinical reasoning principles and algorithms for the functional clinical examination of the shoulder girdle
• The participant can apply clinical reasoning principles and algorithms for the treatment of the most common shoulder pathologies
• The participant can conceptualize, organize, perform, critically reflect, and remediate a progressive treatment program for the patient with shoulder pain
• The participant performs all skills and exercises, comprised in the course, during the practical sessions of the course
• The participant can critically discuss examination and treatment principles with the course teacher and his peers during the interactive sessions.
• the participant can integrate recent scientific knowledge (provided by scientific papers) into the clinical reasoning process of shoulder examination and rehabilitation 

Methods:

• Theoretical presentation (short part)
• Practical demonstration and practical supervision of the students
• Case-discussions
• Peer-learning

Attention & Preparation: Teaching language will be English.

• You need to have basic knowledge on the most common shoulder disorders, namely rotator cuff tendinopathy, degenerative tears, instability, biceps pathology, SLAP lesions, frozen shoulder, scapular disorders.
• Please update your knowledge on basic anatomy and kinesiology of the shoulder girdle, and on the kinematics of the throwing shoulder (phases of throwing, joint positions and possible threats to injury, muscle activity patterns). 
• It is advised that the forwarded literature (scientific papers) is read prior to the start of the course. The papers will be used during the course in a clinically relevant application, while critically interpreted. (Papers consist of both clinical papers (clinical commentaries, invited narrative reviews, state of the art...) and academic systematic reviews for all topics discussed in the course.)
• Please critically reflect on his/her own clinical reasoning for shoulder examination and rehabilitation.