Tendenopathy definition and incidence

Rotator Cuff Tendinopathy-RCT-is a common cuase of painful restriction of the shoulder at all ages and affects about 1 in 50 adults and is particularly common in athletes who throw repetitively, swimmer and laborers who work with their arms over their heads.
o third most common musculoskeletal disorder after back and neck pain
o increases in incidence in those 60 years and over.
o 8-15% of athletic injuries involve the shoulder, and shoulder instability is very common in young athletes, nto so much in older ones
o It follows trauma in 30% of cases and is bilateral in only 5%
o Prevalence of shoudler diseases reported to range from 7-36% in general population, and shoulder complaints account for 1.2% of all GP encounters in Australia

It is ultimately the repeated impingement of the coroacromial arch onto the supraspinatus tendon that has been implicated as the likley mechanism of tendon injury, as the supraspinatus complex occupies a narrow space with light contact between supraspinatus and the coroacromial arch during normal abduction.

Tendinopathy is infact a more technically correct term for shoulder injuries, not tendonitis, as, although true inflammatory tendinopathies exist, most patients that present to a GP have had prolonged symptoms. Thus by the time they do present, acute inflammation would probably have subsided and been supplanted by degeneration of the normally highly arranged collagen structure of the tendon. There are three classifications of tendinipathy:
1) acute tendonitis alone
2) chronic tendinosus + acute tendonitis
3) chronic tendinosus alone