Treating Frozen Shoulder With Integrative Medicine Approach by the Energy Accumulator - a Prospective Clinical Trial

Frozen shoulder is common among middle-aged persons in the 5th and 6th decades. The pain can be acute or chronic. Patients feel stiffness over the shoulder, shown by restriction in range of motion. The etiology includes trauma, cervical disc degeneration, physical strain, psychosocial problems and even genetic factors. The predisposing factors include immobilization of the arm for a long time, rotator cuff or biceps tendinitis, tenosynovitis of the long head of the biceps, congenital deformity of the shoulder girdle, scapula-costal cementing, ligamentous injury, osteoarthritis, muscular fibrosis or nutritional deficiencies. The pathology is unclear but it is widely believed that it is related to inflammation in the joint and surrounding soft tissues which lead to fibrosis. Frozen Shoulder can be divided into Primary Frozen Shoulder which occurs spontaneously without other diseases; and Secondary Frozen Shoulder is associated with joint diseases, such as osteoarthritis or fractures.

UKFROST was a multi-centre randomized clinical trial comparing 3 parallel groups (arms) of frozen shoulder patients treated 1) under anaesthesia + steroid injection 2) under anaesthesia + arthoscopy, and 3) physiotherapy + steriod injection..The large-scale study proves physiotherapy program beneficial to frozen shoulder patients, and, the effectiveness might further improve by introducing East-Meets-West component - Chinese Medicine.