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This is Brent of the Brookbush
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Institute, and in this video we're going over
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a special, or orthopedic test for the
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shoulder. This is known as the Drop Arm
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Test and is indicative of supraspinatus
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tear and/or impingement syndrome.
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I'm going to have my friend, Melissa, come
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out. She's going to help me demonstrate.
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Now, our subjective evaluation would have
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led us to believe that, maybe, Melissa has
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done something to damage her rotator
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cuff. So, I'm going to have her go ahead and
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face me. You're going to stand in front
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of your patient. You're going to help
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them to 90 degrees of abduction. Good. Can
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you hold that right there? Nowm what I
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want you to do is slowly let both of
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your arms down to your sides. Okay.
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We're going to go ahead and turn around
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and show this to you. You're supposed
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to be in front of your patient. I'm going to
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have to turn behind Melissa here. So, I'm
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going to passively take her into
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abduction and ask her, "Can you hold this?" Okay,
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if they can't hold that, that's a good
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indication that you have a positive Drop
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Arm Test already. Okay, now slowly lower
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your arms down. And what you'll notice,
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guys, in the Drop Arm Test is one arm-
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they're not able to slowly decelerate
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adduction. That's an indication that
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they're supraspinatus can't do its
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job and/or it's painful. As I mentioned
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before, this could be an indicator of
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impingement, although I don't see it used
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as often for that particular diagnosis.
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This test does happen to be very
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specific but not particularly sensitive.
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My guess is is that when you see this, it
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is most likely supraspinatus issues, but
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because your deltoid is such a
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strong abductor, it's also very possible
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that you have supraspinatus issues
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and still pass the Drop Arm Test. That is,
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you get a negative result on the Drop
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Arm Test, because your deltoid is able to
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compensate. So, let me go over this one
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more time, guys. Passively, you're
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going to bring them up to 90 degrees. Now
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what you need to do is be able to see
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from the front
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here, whether they can slowly and
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smoothly allow both arms to equally come
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back down to adduction. If it's not
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equal and it doesn't look smooth, that is a
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positive Drop Arm Test. Now, of course, I'm
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going to use this in a cluster of exams.
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I'm not going to rely on this test by
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itself. I'm going to go ahead and do my
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impingement exams. I'm going to do
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other rotator cuff exams. I'm going to
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use that subjective exam. I'll gather all
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of that data together to start creating
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a hypothesis, and then I'm going to use
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that hypothesis to start
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selecting interventions. Now, if this is
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the positive test and is
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what we are trying to improve, then this is
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the test I'm going to keep coming back
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to in my quick tests so that I can tell
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whether my intervention is being
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successful, and don't think that all
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of your interventions are going to be
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successful. Even if there's no
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improvement between the first time I did
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the drop arm test, the interventions I
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just did, and the second time I did the
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Drop Arm Test, that's just that many more
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interventions I'm not going to use and
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I've narrowed down my focus. I hope you
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guys enjoyed this video. I hope you add
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one more assessment to your bag of
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assessments, because as you guys
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improve as professionals, I can promise
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you one thing. It's not the hundreds of
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interventions and hundreds of techniques that you will learn that are
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going to make you a marquee practitioner,
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it is the large amount of assessments
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and your ability to create an accurate
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hypothesis that is going to make you
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rise to the top as a practitioner. Step
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up your assessment game. I look forward
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to seeing you guys soon.