0:04 This is Brent of the Brookbush Institute, and in this video I'm going to show you 0:07 the shoulder abduction test for cervical radiculopathy. I'm going to have my friend 0:11 Yvette come out, she's going to help me demonstrate. This is a fairly simple test, 0:15 but it's a test that I think has transference to things you might 0:19 see in the individuals daily activity. So I want you to keep your eyes out for 0:23 this one, here's how this works. Somebody comes in with cervical 0:26 radiculopathy signs. So maybe on our subjective exam Yvette was complaining 0:33 about some right-sided neck pain. Maybe she has some tingling tight stuff, maybe 0:38 some cramping in one of her arm muscles, right like you know how like sometimes 0:43 cervical radiculopathy patients get that unremitting fatigue feeling 0:48 right, and she's getting some tingling in her fingertips. So we know some 0:51 nerve involvement is happening and we know the neck is involved because that's 0:54 where she's got this pretty harsh pain. The test itself goes like 0:59 this, hey in this position any change in your symptoms? (No). 1:03 So you still feel all the stuff? Okay that's that's unfortunate. Do me a 1:09 favor, if you do this, how does that feel? (Better). That feels better, okay that's a positive 1:17 test, that's it, that's it. This is the shoulder abduction test, not a 1:21 complicated test, a specific test though. So if you get a positive, research shows 1:26 that actually that's a pretty good indicator that we have cervical 1:29 radiculopathy, not very sensitive so don't give much weight to the no, but 1:34 let's do that one more time and think about this for a second. 1:37 Can you move that one more time for me. So can you imagine 1:41 if we do this, she just took a bunch of tension off her brachial plexus. 1:47 She probably took some tension off a couple of the nerves in her arm 1:53 just by kind of bending at the elbow, going into a little bit of of elevation 2:00 at the scapula. The rest of this is all in a nice relaxed position, so if 2:05 I take some tension off these nerves you can imagine how symptoms should go 2:11 down. Now here's what I was talking about with keeping in mind with daily 2:16 activity, how many people have you seen walk in to 2:22 the clinic or maybe just even around a restaurant, or even at home and the first 2:29 thing they want to do when they sit down is what? So if somebody comes 2:36 in with neck pain and their first position they want to get into when they 2:43 try to relax is this, I would think in the back of your head wow that 2:49 could be a cervical radiculopathy sign. I'm not saying 2:53 catastrophize this, that doesn't mean that everybody who rocks is like this 2:57 has cervical problems, that is not what I'm saying at all, but if someone comes 3:01 into your clinic with neck pain and you were not thinking cervical radiculopathy 3:06 before, maybe seeing somebody do this as their relaxation position is a good 3:14 indicator for you to do your cervical radiculopathy cluster. So 3:20 that we do get a good indication of whether that is the diagnosis that we're 3:24 working with, because that might change the way we treat just a little bit. All 3:29 right so again just a quick review, super easy, 3:33 you're going to assess the patient's symptoms in sitting and try to be 3:37 consistent about the way you sit, like I would make Yvette sit with pretty decent 3:40 posture here, I wouldn't let her slouch, and then I would ask her how her 3:44 symptoms are in this position. If she's a fairly irritable cervical radiculopathy, 3:50 she has some pretty good symptoms we're still pretty acute with this, chances are 3:55 just sitting here is going to be a little rough. Alright and then all I am going to 3:59 have you do, hey do me a favor Yvette can you just put your hand on top of your 4:02 head, so I'm unweighting some of the nerves, unstretching stretching some of the 4:07 nerves from brachial plexus on down; and if she goes hey does that help at all, 4:12 and that helps her symptoms, and be careful with the question 4:18 you ask, the symptoms you were talking about when you walked in. So 4:22 this is the right-sided neck pain, is that better? Yeah it is, yeah and then the 4:26 nerve stuff is a little bit? Yeah, right so that's that's a positive. If her 4:30 symptoms go down that's a positive. If you have any 4:33 questions about this test, this very easy test, please leave me a comment in the in 4:38 the box below, and I'll talk with you again soon
