00:00:0400:00:07
This is Brent of the Brookbush Institute, and in this video I'm going to show you
00:00:0700:00:11
the shoulder abduction test for cervical radiculopathy. I'm going to have my friend
00:00:1100:00:15
Yvette come out, she's going to help me demonstrate. This is a fairly simple test,
00:00:1500:00:19
but it's a test that I think has transference to things you might
00:00:1900:00:23
see in the individuals daily activity. So I want you to keep your eyes out for
00:00:2300:00:26
this one, here's how this works. Somebody comes in with cervical
00:00:2600:00:33
radiculopathy signs. So maybe on our subjective exam Yvette was complaining
00:00:3300:00:38
about some right-sided neck pain. Maybe she has some tingling tight stuff, maybe
00:00:3800:00:43
some cramping in one of her arm muscles, right like you know how like sometimes
00:00:4300:00:48
cervical radiculopathy patients get that unremitting fatigue feeling
00:00:4800:00:51
right, and she's getting some tingling in her fingertips. So we know some
00:00:5100:00:54
nerve involvement is happening and we know the neck is involved because that's
00:00:5400:00:59
where she's got this pretty harsh pain. The test itself goes like
00:00:5900:01:03
this, hey in this position any change in your symptoms? (No).
00:01:0300:01:09
So you still feel all the stuff? Okay that's that's unfortunate. Do me a
00:01:0900:01:17
favor, if you do this, how does that feel? (Better). That feels better, okay that's a positive
00:01:1700:01:21
test, that's it, that's it. This is the shoulder abduction test, not a
00:01:2100:01:26
complicated test, a specific test though. So if you get a positive, research shows
00:01:2600:01:29
that actually that's a pretty good indicator that we have cervical
00:01:2900:01:34
radiculopathy, not very sensitive so don't give much weight to the no, but
00:01:3400:01:37
let's do that one more time and think about this for a second.
00:01:3700:01:41
Can you move that one more time for me. So can you imagine
00:01:4100:01:47
if we do this, she just took a bunch of tension off her brachial plexus.
00:01:4700:01:53
She probably took some tension off a couple of the nerves in her arm
00:01:5300:02:00
just by kind of bending at the elbow, going into a little bit of of elevation
00:02:0000:02:05
at the scapula. The rest of this is all in a nice relaxed position, so if
00:02:0500:02:11
I take some tension off these nerves you can imagine how symptoms should go
00:02:1100:02:16
down. Now here's what I was talking about with keeping in mind with daily
00:02:1600:02:22
activity, how many people have you seen walk in to
00:02:2200:02:29
the clinic or maybe just even around a restaurant, or even at home and the first
00:02:2900:02:36
thing they want to do when they sit down is what? So if somebody comes
00:02:3600:02:43
in with neck pain and their first position they want to get into when they
00:02:4300:02:49
try to relax is this, I would think in the back of your head wow that
00:02:4900:02:53
could be a cervical radiculopathy sign. I'm not saying
00:02:5300:02:57
catastrophize this, that doesn't mean that everybody who rocks is like this
00:02:5700:03:01
has cervical problems, that is not what I'm saying at all, but if someone comes
00:03:0100:03:06
into your clinic with neck pain and you were not thinking cervical radiculopathy
00:03:0600:03:14
before, maybe seeing somebody do this as their relaxation position is a good
00:03:1400:03:20
indicator for you to do your cervical radiculopathy cluster. So
00:03:2000:03:24
that we do get a good indication of whether that is the diagnosis that we're
00:03:2400:03:29
working with, because that might change the way we treat just a little bit. All
00:03:2900:03:33
right so again just a quick review, super easy,
00:03:3300:03:37
you're going to assess the patient's symptoms in sitting and try to be
00:03:3700:03:40
consistent about the way you sit, like I would make Yvette sit with pretty decent
00:03:4000:03:44
posture here, I wouldn't let her slouch, and then I would ask her how her
00:03:4400:03:50
symptoms are in this position. If she's a fairly irritable cervical radiculopathy,
00:03:5000:03:55
she has some pretty good symptoms we're still pretty acute with this, chances are
00:03:5500:03:59
just sitting here is going to be a little rough. Alright and then all I am going to
00:03:5900:04:02
have you do, hey do me a favor Yvette can you just put your hand on top of your
00:04:0200:04:07
head, so I'm unweighting some of the nerves, unstretching stretching some of the
00:04:0700:04:12
nerves from brachial plexus on down; and if she goes hey does that help at all,
00:04:1200:04:18
and that helps her symptoms, and be careful with the question
00:04:1800:04:22
you ask, the symptoms you were talking about when you walked in. So
00:04:2200:04:26
this is the right-sided neck pain, is that better? Yeah it is, yeah and then the
00:04:2600:04:30
nerve stuff is a little bit? Yeah, right so that's that's a positive. If her
00:04:3000:04:33
symptoms go down that's a positive. If you have any
00:04:3300:04:38
questions about this test, this very easy test, please leave me a comment in the in