Short wave is frequently used in the management of shoulder pathologies, particularly frozen shoulder and subacromial impingement syndrome.

Frozen Shoulder: 

Leung and Cheing (2008) compared the effects of SWD and superficial heating in patients with a frozen shoulder. They found greater improvement in pain relief, activities of daily living, and ROM with addition of short wave to stretching exercises.

Pajareya et al. (2004) studied patients with frozen shoulder, and found that shortwave enhanced the therapeutic effects of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and exercise after 3 wks, but there was no significant additional effect at 12 wks.

Recommendation: 

• Single Head =
  • Pulsed or constant
  • Up to heating effect
  • Frequency = daily down to 1x per week
  • 20 mins
  • For 3-6 weeks (aim for 6+ sessions)

Impingement Syndrome:

Kaysin et al. (2018), used 27.12 MHz of continuous SWD (as a 20-min daily session, 5 days per week for 2 wks, for a total of 10 sessions) with exercises and found the shortwave provided long-term benefits when compared with sham treatment. Shortwave helped VAS scores for rest and activity pain, and Constant-Murley Scale (CS) and Shoulder Disability Questionnaire (SDQ) scores in subachromial impingement syndromes in patients. They did however find patients with night pain did not have these improvements. They recommended that shortwave was a positive treatment in cases without night pain.  

Recommendation: 

• Single Head =
  • Pulsed or constant
  • up to 5w or go for heating effect
  • Frequency = daily down to 1x per week
  • 20 mins
  • For 3-6 weeks (aim for 10 sessions)