Shoulder Pain Diagnosis Chart
Whether it’s impingement, instability, or a rotator cuff tear- create a visual representation of your patient’s shoulder pain and narrow down their diagnoses, or monitor their progress over time, with our shoulder pain diagnosis chart.
Fact Checked by RJ Gumban.
What is a Shoulder Pain Diagnosis Chart?
Pain mapping of musculoskeletal complaints such as hip, back, or knee pain can help to diagnose the problem and inform therapeutic decisions. Allowing patients to mark on a visual diagram where they feel pain and what type of pain they feel improves communication without requiring anatomical terminology. Since many disorders have characteristic patterns of pain localization, pain mapping can also help practitioners to narrow down their diagnoses.
Your shoulder may be in pain due to a frozen or dislocated shoulder. Limited shoulder movements or a frozen shoulder means stiffness in the shoulder area, which can cause reduced mobility. On the other hand, a shoulder dislocation means the upper arm bone comes out of the shoulder socket, which can cause immediate and immense pain. Intense pain on the shoulder blade can indicate muscle strain, posture problems, or arthritis. Meanwhile, pain in the rotator cuff muscles may mean inflammation in these areas.
Front shoulder pain may be caused by SLAP tears, rotator cuff tears, biceps tendonitis, and/or a clavicle injury. On the other hand, back shoulder pain may be caused by muscle strain, poor posture, T4 syndrome, nerve pain, shoulder bursitis, heart attack, and/or arthritis.
Our is a pre-formatted tool designed to help you or your patients map out their pain. This tool is flexible enough to be used for left, right, or bilateral shoulder pain and allows for differentiation between four different types of pain. While the visual component of this chart is intuitive, to get a thorough understanding of how to utilize this resource best- just keep reading!
Red flags of shoulder pain
When it comes to shoulder pain, here are some red flags that you shouldn't ignore.
- Severe Pain
- Shoulder and arm weakness
- Inability to raise the arm
- Shoulder swelling
- Red skin
- Painful shoulder joint
- Fever
Printable Shoulder Pain Diagnosis Chart
Download this Shoulder Pain Diagnosis Chart and assess your client’s shoulder pain.
How does this Shoulder Pain Diagnosis Chart work?
While we've aimed to keep this chart simple and widely applicable for patients experiencing shoulder pain, we have also packed in some handy customizable features- which we'll run through now.
Step 1: Add patient details
The interactive PDF shoulder pain diagnosis chart includes several pre-formatted fields for your patient's details. These include their name, identifier, and date of birth.
Step 2: Add in color/marker coding (optional)
Depending on what kind of pain your patient is experiencing, you may wish to utilize the blank key provided. This key provides four empty boxes for color coding or differentiating between different pain types. To see an example of how to use this key with colors or different markers, take a look at our example shoulder pain diagnosis chart.
Step 3: Annotate diagram(s)
Once you have determined your colors or markers to annotate different types of pain, you can start mapping your patient's pain on the diagram. Your patient can also complete this part of the chart if they feel confident to do so, which may provide a more accurate representation of their pain.
Step 4: Fill in practitioner details
At the bottom of the shoulder pain diagnosis chart is space to add your details, designation, and signature.
Step 5: Store securely
The last step is storing the resource securely as part of your patient's clinical record. We recommend doing this digitally rather than as a paper copy to improve accessibility and utilize digital encryption, and you can do this seamlessly from within the Carepatron app. Feel free to skip to the end of this article to find out how!
Shoulder Pain Diagnosis Chart example (sample)
If you're more of a visual learner or prefer to see a finished tool example before you start using it yourself, look no further than our example shoulder pain diagnosis chart. This sample chart demonstrates the capability of this resource to map different types of pain, as well as the interactive PDF functionality when used as a digital resource. Look at the example below, or you can download the example chart or a blank version using the free PDF links provided.
Download this Shoulder Pain Diagnosis Chart Example (Sample) here:
When to use a Shoulder Pain Diagnosis Chart PDF?
A shoulder pain diagnosis chart will likely be useful upon admission or initial assessment of a patient presenting with shoulder pain. That being said, this chart can also serve as a progress monitoring tool to visually represent changes in your patient's pain over time. This chart should always be completed in collaboration with your patient, as their input is required for which regions of their shoulder hurt. As such, completing this shoulder pain diagnosis chart during appointments or sessions with your patient is a good way to go.
Who is this printable Shoulder Pain Diagnosis Chart for?
Although knowledge of common shoulder pathologies and anatomical terminology is required to interpret the results of the shoulder pain diagnosis chart, these are not required for drawing in areas of pain on a 2D upper limb and shoulder diagram.
As such, this chart can be completed independently by patients. However, a healthcare practitioner must interpret the results and determine the best action for the patient's situation.
Some of these practitioners might include:
- Physiotherapists
- Physical therapists
- Occupational therapists
- General practitioners
- Orthopedic surgeons or nurses
- Sports medicine physicians
Why use this Shoulder Pain Diagnosis Chart in Carepatron?
If you're looking for a way to get on top of your practice's administration work and shift to working digitally, look no further than Carepatron.
As well as developing interactive resources for practitioners from dentistry to physiotherapy, Carepatron offers state-of-the-art practice management software to save you and your staff time.
Physical therapists can create, store, and access your patient's assessments, intake forms, and progress notes. Utilize Carepatron's digital encryption to ensure your patient's confidential information is safe and ensure you can access these documents whenever you need them with Carepatron's mobile or desktop platforms.
Carepatron also offers smart digital solutions to take your practice to the next level with automated billing and appointment reminders or AI-powered dictation software.
Best of all, you can start using Carepatron's starter plan for free, so why not try it out today and find out why 10,000+ passionate healthcare practitioners have chosen Carepatron?
References
Bayam L, Ahmad MA, Naqui SZ, Chouhan A, Funk L. Pain mapping for common shoulder disorders. Am J Orthop (Belle Mead NJ). 2011 Jul;40(7):353-8.
Commonly asked questions
Pain mapping has been widespread across all musculoskeletal injuries and related fields. However, our shoulder pain diagnosis chart is based on the work of Bayam et al. (2011), who described pain distribution for several common shoulder pathologies.
We know not everyone likes to color code, or even use all four types of pain provided. As such, we have kept the key blank so that you can add in colors or markings that work for you, and annotate the shoulder diagram accordingly. See our example shoulder pain diagnosis chart to see what this might look like in practice.
No! This chart can be kept entirely digital, but you will need access to PDF annotation software in order to customize the shoulder diagram to your patient.
