Shoulder Abduction Test

What is the Shoulder Abduction Test?

Suppose you have a patient that consults with you to discuss pain in their upper body, and they specifically talk about shoulder pains. In that case, the impingement or irritation of the nerves in the cervical spine region may cause their pain.

If the nerves in this region are impinged or irritated, this will cause pain that has the chance to spread to the shoulders, arms, and hands of a patient. It may even result in the weakness and/or numbness of muscles in the upper extremities and the sensation of being pricked by needles in the hands and fingers. While nerve impingement can heal over time, which it usually does in just a few days (or up to a month, if you’re unlucky), that doesn’t mean it should be left unchecked because these might be a factor for certain cervical spine area-related problems.

To assess the patient to check if the impingement or irritation of these nerves is the problem, the Shoulder Abduction Test was developed. This test, also known as Bakody’s Sign, was specifically created to help healthcare professionals gauge the possibility of cervical radiculopathy, brachial plexus impingement, and other cervical spine area-related conditions. It does so by, well, abducting the shoulder and checking if the pain that the patient is feeling subsides.

Check out this video to see how the Shoulder Abduction Test is performed:

How to conduct the Shoulder Abduction Test?

Before conducting this test, you should know that this is a non-invasive test, so it doesn’t require any special equipment for you to do it. The only thing that you might need is optional, which is a comfortable examination bed. The patient won’t be lying down on it, though. They just need to sit on it. You can even choose to have the patient stand up, too.

It’s also quite an easy test since it only involves one step. It can be accomplished in a minute or two, plus, you can get the results that you need immediately.

Once you’re all set, just do the following:

• Have your patient sit down on an examination bed or chair. Or, you can have them stand up.
• Tell your patient to passively or actively abduct their arm, specifically the arm where they feel shoulder pain or just pain in general. This means they have to raise their arm above their head.
• Once their arm is above the head, have them flex their elbow.
• After flexing the elbow, have them plant their hand on the top of their head while keeping the arm over the head and flexing the elbow.
• Tell them to maintain this position for thirty seconds.

There! That’s how you do the Shoulder Abduction Test. Easy, right?

How to interpret the findings of the Shoulder Abduction Test

Now that you know what the Shoulder Abduction Test is about, how to perform it, and what it aims to assess, it’s time to know how to interpret the findings!

For the Shoulder Abduction Test, you’re specifically looking out for one thing. If the patient feels shoulder pain before the test, then the Shoulder Abduction Test will try to relieve that pain or make it subside. If there is a reduction of pain or if it is relieved while maintaining the position for thirty seconds, then the test is considered positive because the position alleviates the nerves and the lower brachial plexus trunks. If this is the designation that you will give them, the next step is to endorse them for further examination to properly confirm the specific problem based on the findings.

If the patient doesn’t experience any pain throughout this exam, then they are negative.

If the patient still feels pain when abducting their shoulders and maintaining the required position for thirty seconds, they are still negative for this test. Though, if they are in pain while performing this test, that’s a sign that they have a problem that other tests can gauge, not this one. So, it’s best to endorse them for a comprehensive examination.

When is it best to conduct the Shoulder Abduction Test?

The best time to conduct the Shoulder Abduction Test is when a patient visits you for a consultation and complains about pain in their shoulder(s), their neck, or even their arms, all the more if the patient feels tingles in their arms, hands, and fingers. You should also check their medical history because if their record shows that they have had issues with their neck and cervical spine before or they have recently been admitted to a hospital for an injury or trauma in their shoulders, then this test is definitely one of the techniques that you should use to properly gauge the patient’s shoulder problem.

Earlier in this guide, we mentioned that if the patient gets a positive designation after the Shoulder Abduction Test, or if they still feel pain even after a negative designation, the next step that you should take is to endorse the patient for a comprehensive examination. This is because the Shoulder Abduction Test should not be the sole assessment you’ll use to gauge a patient.

This doesn’t mean it’s unreliable, though. It looks for a specific sign to say that the possible problem has something to do with irritated or impinged cervical spine nerves. Other tests will be able to confirm it, especially imaging tests. The Shoulder Abduction Test results should help other members of a team to determine what particular tests they should conduct, whether the results are positive or negative.

Who can conduct the Shoulder Abduction Test?

Since the Shoulder Abduction Test is a physical examination technique, and it is a test that was developed specifically to gauge potential problems in a patient’s cervical spine area, this test should be conducted by healthcare professionals who specialize in assessing and treating musculoskeletal problems. These professionals include the following:

• Orthopedists and orthopedic surgeons
• Physical therapists
• Occupation therapists
• Physiotherapists
• Chiropractors
• Rehabilitation specialists

These professionals are the most qualified to conduct this test on their patients because they have undergone extensive training and they understand the musculoskeletal system enough that they can accurately interpret test results, especially those that are physical examination techniques such as the Shoulder Abduction Test.

They also know that this test (or any other physical examination technique) is not enough to make a diagnosis on its own. Given this, they are knowledgeable enough that they can also determine what other tests to conduct to confirm the results of their respective tests and cover enough bases to get the full picture of an entire problem.

What are the benefits of the Shoulder Abduction Test?

It is a safe and inexpensive test to conduct.

Unlike other physical examination techniques that require you to flex a patient’s limbs with your hands, the Shoulder Abduction Test has you telling the patient to abduct their shoulders on their own. It doesn’t require any special equipment, it’s non-invasive, and it’s safe! Not only that, the instructions are so simple that you can accomplish this between one to two minutes, plus, get instant results!

It can help guide treatment decisions.

One of the best things about the Shoulder Abduction Test is that it can help healthcare professionals decide what to do next. If the Shoulder Abduction Test is positive, the next set of tests will likely be tests that will confirm the presence of certain problems, like cervical radiculopathy and brachial plexus impingement. If the test is negative, but the patient still feels pain, then the problem is likely to be something else and requires other physical examination techniques to determine what it could be and where they are in the cervical spine area. The treatment will also depend on the official diagnosis and the results of all tests.

It can be used to monitor patients.

Now, let’s stipulate that your team made an official diagnosis and implemented a treatment plan. Naturally, you’d like to know if the patient is getting better and if the treatment plan your team made is effective.

During a routine check-up, you can repeat the Shoulder Abduction Test to gauge the patient’s shoulders. If there is less pain than before, then good! That means the patient is slowly improving and your treatment plan is working! If the pain is still the same or somehow got worse, then perhaps your treatment plan needs a bit of tweaking or it should be overhauled. If so, your goal is to see if the changes are effective.