Shoulder Testing: Return to Sport/Work

This battery of tests for the shoulder return to sport testing includes written questionnaires to determine how your injury/pain is impacting your functions and confidence to return to sports, range of motion testing, rotator cuff and scapular strength and endurance testing, and functional/sport specific tests.

These tests are all evidence based and well documented in the literature to be useful, valid, reliable and easily repeatable.

It allows us to utilise the best available evidence relating to the shoulder to measure your recovery and rehabilitation. Benchmarking your results against the normative data allows us to help make evidence based decisions to progress your rehab appropriately. Monitoring range of motion, strength testing using hand held dynamometry, endurance, and sport specific testing is key to a successful return to sport following upper limb injury.

Research has shown that upper limb injury in athletes have demonstrated reduced shoulder mobility and stability, rotator cuff and scapular strength, and decreased force generation with sport specific tasks (e.g. throwing, tackling). Measuring these key performance indicators allows us an appropriate method of assessments to help guide you through your rehabilitation journey to meet your goals.

Upper Limb Return to Sport Testing Aims

This testing is suitable for a range of conditions an patients such as;

• Post Operative Shoulder Conditions
• Shoulder instability (conservative management)
• Musculoskeletal Screenings
• Sport Specific Screenings (e.g. baseball, swimming)
• Injury Rehabilitation Outcome Measures (e.g. shoulder reconstruction, rotator cuff repair)
• Assessing Work Capacity