Determining The Prevalence Of Trigger Points In Acute Shoulder Pain Patients

ABSTRACT

Background: Shoulder pain due to its high prevalence has great significance in its contribution to morbidity. It’s the third most common musculoskeletal problem.There are two types of trigger points found they are active and latent trigger points.Active trigger points are the one which when palpated causes spontaneous pain or referred pain and latent trigger points are the one which do not cause any pain except they are present either in form of taut band or nodules. MyofascialTrigger points (MTrPs) cause a local pain syndrome. The main cause of myofascial pain syndrome are trigger points. Purpose of the study The purpose of the study was to determine the exact muscles that have the tendency for developing trigger points in acute shoulder pain pathologies and to see the trigger points developed are due to the shoulder pathology. Materials and Methods: A observational study was performed. Patients were selected by convenient sampling. 70 people participated within the age of 18-65, pain duration within 3 months, males and female included with no history of recent trauma, neurovascular injuries, degenerative pathology and shoulder dislocation. Patients were assessed for myofascial trigger points (MTrPs) on both affected and non-affected side. MTrPs were assessed on different muscles by manual palpation method. Results: The result shows that the muscle affected maximum is upper trapezius with 84.28% and pectoralis major with 71.42%. Also on the affected side, upper trapezius with 37.14% and pectoralis major and subscapularis with 20.00%. Conclusion: This study showed the prevalence of trigger points in acute shoulder pain pathologies is66.59% . Each patient of any acute pathology had the presence of more than 3 trigger points in the affected side proving trigger points to be of significant importance and it is due to underlying shoulder pathology.