Shoulder Impingement - Pain on Top of Your Shoulder Near the Neck

If you find it hard to reach up behind your back or lift your arm, or if you have sharp pain inside your shoulder when using your arm overhead, you may be suffering from a shoulder impingement. Having ongoing pain in your shoulder or feeling weakness in your shoulder muscles are also symptoms of this syndrome.

You can get an impingement from a variety of repetitive activities or your job. For example, playing tennis, weightlifting, swimming, painting, construction work and other tasks where you are moving your arms upward. Many individuals aren’t aware that their shoulder impingement can become dangerously chronic and affect their quality of life for many years if not diagnosed and treated in a timely manner.

Shoulder Impingement Syndrome

Shoulder Impingement Syndrome is when you have continual pain in your shoulder that interferes with your everyday tasks. The subacromial space is the area in your shoulder where the bursa, rotator cuff, and muscles pass through. This space becomes smaller when your arm is raised.

Shoulder impingement syndrome happens when the soft tissue inside the subacromial space of your shoulder is pinched. If you’ve ever noticed weakness when raising your arm, this can be to the muscle or tendon pinching in your shoulder. The bursa or tendons become pinched by the shoulder bone and as time goes on it becomes inflamed and the tendons and muscles degenerate.

This syndrome is also known by other names like pitcher’s shoulder, thrower’s shoulder and swimmer’s shoulder. This is due to the fact that it mimics the symptoms of tendonitis, bursitis, rotator cuff tear, tenosynovitis or similar shoulder issues.

Signs that you may have Shoulder Impingement Syndrome include:

  • Sharp pain when moving your arm overhead
  • Hard to reach behind your back or elevate your arm
  • Muscle weakness in your shoulder

In the beginning, impingement pain will slowly grow in the shoulder over time.

Shoulder Impingement Physical Therapy

It’s vital to get proper treatment for shoulder impingement syndrome as soon as it happens. When left untreated, other conditions can result like rotator-cuff tears or tendonitis and irritation of the bursa.

We can treat your shoulder impingement and depending on your condition, help you get back to your daily activities. First, we will perform a thorough evaluation to determine your condition and create a treatment plan that is best for you. We utilize manual therapy with a hands-on approach to gently move your joints and muscles. Muscle strengthening begins as we design a personalized resistance program for you. Functional training can help you transition back to your typical activities after your motion and strength improves and your pain subsides.

Our goal is to get to the root of your pain. Often the pain is not coming from the structure of your shoulder, but from the nerve. We can determine where its coming from and create a treatment plan best for you to help you become pain free. Physical therapy for shoulder impingement can help give more function and range of motion to your shoulder while decreasing the pain and swelling.

For home exercises or treatment you can do at home, please read Exercises and Treatment for Shoulder Impingement Pain Relief

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  • Phone
(718) 673-2014
  • Address

Allcare Physical Therapy
1213 Avenue P, Brooklyn, NY

  • Hours
Monday8:30 AM–7:00 PM
Tuesday8:30 AM–7:00 PM
Wednesday8:30 AM–7:00 PM
Thursday8:30 AM–7:00 PM
Friday8:00 AM–12:00 PM
Saturday*Closed
Sunday8:30 AM–1:30 PM