NCT04747938

Frozen Shoulder Treated by Energy Accumulator

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

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 38 (actual)
• Sponsor: Chinese University of Hong Kong · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 40 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Frozen shoulder is a painful and disabling disorder of unclear cause, affecting middle-age people after their 5th decades. They suffer from annoying pain and limited shoulder mobility. Energy Accumulator provides a better way of relief through an integrative medicine concept.

Detailed description

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.

Conditions

• Frozen Shoulder

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Energy accumulator	All subjects treated with thermal therapy using the Energy Accumulator by acupoint concepts. The course included 8 sessions of treatment, twice every week for 4 weeks. Each session lasted for 30-45 minutes. During heat therapy, the ceramic nozzle of the Energy Accumulator was lightly pressed in contact of the skin, without any contact medium, and moved slowly along the meridians with some circular movements.
BEHAVIORAL	Home exercise program	Home exercises aimed at providing gentle mobilization at the shoulder and were capable of carrying out at home. Patients were requested to perform the movements on a daily basis within the first 4 weeks of treatment. Four movements were involved: Movement 1 - Pendular Exercise, Movement 2 - Circle Exercise, Movement 3 - Wall Climbing Exercise, and Movement 4 - Lie on bed and move both arms up and down.

Timeline

• Start date: 2014-09-01
• Primary completion: 2015-08-03
• Completion: 2015-10-24
• First posted: 2021-02-10
• Last updated: 2021-08-06