Sleeping Position and Shoulder Pain

chiropractic-lane.com 07105

www.safety-lane.com


Sleeping Position and Shoulder Pain

The Study:   Association between the side of unilateral shoulder pain and preferred sleeping position: a cross-sectional study of 83 Danish patients.
  
The Facts:
a. The study looked at patients with shoulder pain on one side.
b. The authors wished to determine two things: if the shoulder the patient slept on was related to the side of the shoulder pain and if the patients sleeping position was related to the side of the bed on which they slept.
c. They looked at 83 adult patients.
d. 67% of the patients slept on their painful shoulder.
e. 76% faced away from their partner in bed, in other words they slept back to back with their partner.

f. The authors speculate that because the way in which partners sleep relative to one another seems consistent, perhaps changing sides of the bed might help with shoulder pain by encouraging patients to sleep on the opposite shoulder.
Take Home:
Not laying on a painful shoulder might be worth considering. One way to accomplish that might be to simply tell your patients to switch sides of the bed.

Reference: Kempf B, Kongsted A. Association between the side of unilateral shoulder pain and preferred sleeping position: a cross-sectional study of 83 Danish patients.J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2012 Jun;35:407-12

via Blogger http://chiropractic-lane.blogspot.com/2013/07/sleeping-position-and-shoulder-pain.html