Our clinical team has recently embarked on an ambitious series of investigations directed toward the clinical management of shoulder instabilities - the most common cause of shoulder pain in swimmers. Concorde has teamed with the Primary Care Sports Medicine team at Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland, and the Physical Therapy faculty of Walsh Universary in North Canton, to study instability management on several levels.

 

Fluoroscopic evaluation of the unstable shoulder is allowing us to assess the impact of an upper arm strap on stabilizing the shoulder during exercise and swimming. You can view our pilot results by clicking on the video link to the right. For the first time, we are able to observe what swimmers and other athletes with shoulder instabilities have been telling us - the strap reduces instability and allows the athlete to exercise at higher levels (good news to our Sports Medicine staff), and tolerate greater levels of activity during sports (good news for the coach and athlete).

 

We're also working on outcome studies and clinical prediction models to help us better understand how we're doing and how much it benefits our swimmers. It's also allowing us to know when it's right to push forward and when it's best to hold back.

 

The net result of research in the clinical setting -- we're raising the bar on clinical management to get the very best possible outcomes. As a result, Concorde is becomming a regional center for the management of shoulder instabilities in swimmers, throwers and other overhead athletes...

If you have a known shoulder instability, or your coach suspects that you may have excessive looseness in your shoulders, you may benefit from the types of management we utilize in the course of this research. Feel free to give us a call to discuss your situation or to learn more about our research projects.