Abstract:
Background: Shoulder pain is a prevalent complication following stroke that can inhibit recovery and reduce quality of life.
Objective: This review aimed to give a general background of stroke, describe causes of hemiplegic shoulder pain and factors contributing to its development and to illustrate the role of different physical therapy modalities and techniques on shoulder pain after stroke.
Methods: A comprehensive search of Science Direct, PubMed, and Goggle Scholar was conducted using Keywords such as stroke, hemiplegic shoulder pain, physical therapy modalities. The authors also reviewed references from pertinent literature, however only the most recent or comprehensive studies from April 2010 to March 2024 were included, and only English-language studies were reviewed due to lack of translation-related sources. Papers such as oral presentations, conference abstracts, unpublished manuscripts and dissertations that were not part of larger scientific studies were exclude.
Conclusions: A review of the current literature concluded that shoulder pain after stroke is a common impairments, positive results were observed when various physical therapy modalities and techniques were used to treat hemiplegic shoulder pain.