Real Versus Sham Manual Therapy for RCRSP

Real Versus Sham Manual Therapy in Addition to Therapeutic Exercise in the Treatment of Rotator Cuff Related Shoulder Pain: a Randomized Controlled Trial

A convenience sample of subjects with RCRSP recruited through announcements at the Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla will be treated with an exercise program with sham or real manual therapy for 5 weeks.

The hypothesis of the present study is that the addition of manual therapy to a therapeutic exercise program produces better benefits in comparison to the same exercise program with sham manual therapy procedures in the management of patients with RCRSP.

The objective of this study is to demonstrate that the combination of manual therapy and therapeutic exercise achieves better results in the management of the patient with shoulder pain.

For this, manual therapy techniques in the thoracic region and in the shoulder together with a therapeutic exercise program will be applied.

The investigators will compare this intervention protocol with placebo manual therapy techniques and the same therapeutic exercise protocol.

Inclusion Criteria:

• unilateral shoulder pain of non-traumatic origing lasting more than three months.
• Pain evoked with active shoulder movements.
• Pain and weakness evoked with manual muscle strength tests for abduction and/or external rotation.
• Minimal or no rest pain (less than 3 points in a numeric pain rating scale).

Exclusion Criteria:

• Other shoulder pathologies than RCRSP.
• Systemic diseases.
• Neural symptoms.
• Neck pain.
• Radiculopathy.
• To have been treated for shoulder pain in the last three months.