Shoulder involvement in hemiplesia

ABSTRACT

Ninety-three adult hemiplegic patients secondary to cerebral thrombo-embolic manifestations were followed to determine the frequency of the different types of shoulder involvement. Painful shoulder was present in 44% of the cases, shoulder hand syndrome in 18.7% and brachial plexus lesion in 5.4%. There was no sex influence on the development of such complication, similarly, the side of hemiplegia did not affect their rate of occurrence. Most of shoulder complications [90.5%] took place in severely spastic patients. Painful shoulder conditions continued to occur irrespective of the duration of hemiplegia, while it seems that shoulder hand syndrome ceased to develop after 5-6 months from onset of hemiplegia