A Comparison Study of the Western Ontario Rotator Cuff Index, and the Constant-Murley Score with Objective Assessment of External Rotator Muscle Strength and Pain in Patients after Arthroscopic Rotator Cuff Repair

Agnieszka Bejer; Jędrzej Płocki; Mirosław Probachta; Ireneusz Kotela; Andrzej Kotela

doi:10.3390/ijerph20136316

A Comparison Study of the Western Ontario Rotator Cuff Index, and the Constant-Murley Score with Objective Assessment of External Rotator Muscle Strength and Pain in Patients after Arthroscopic Rotator Cuff Repair

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jul 7;20(13):6316. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20136316.

Authors

Agnieszka Bejer^{1

2}, Jędrzej Płocki^{2

3}, Mirosław Probachta², Ireneusz Kotela^{4

5}, Andrzej Kotela^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Health Sciences, College of Medical Sciences, University of Rzeszow, 35-959 Rzeszow, Poland.
² The Holy Family Specialistic Hospital, 36-060 Rzeszow, Poland.
³ Department of Physiotherapy, Collegium Medicum, University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow, 35-225 Rzeszow, Poland.
⁴ Institute of Health Sciences, Collegium Medicum, The Jan Kochanowski University, 25-317 Kielce, Poland.
⁵ Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology, Central Clinical Hospital of the Ministry of Interior, 02-507 Warsaw, Poland.
⁶ Faculty of Medicine, Collegium Medicum, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, 01-938 Warsaw, Poland.

Abstract

Although rotator cuff injures are often associated with a limited range of motion and muscle weakness, being able to conduct pain-free and efficient performances of the activities as part of daily living seems to be more important for patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between two questionnaires-the disease-specific, subjective questionnaire termed the Western Ontario Rotator Cuff Index (WORC), and the shoulder-specific, subjective-objective questionnaire Constant-Murley score (CMS), with the objective assessment of external rotator muscle strength, and the subjective assessment of pain according to the visual analog scale (VAS) in patients after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair. The study was carried out among 47 patients twice-6 and 12 months after surgery, respectively. All patients completed the WORC, the CMS, and the VAS. Isokinetic evaluation of the external rotators was performed using the Biodex 4 ProSystem. The correlations of all assessed muscle strength parameters with both the CMS and the WORC were found to be statistically significant, being mostly average during the 1st examination and mostly strong during the 2nd examination. There was a significant improvement in all assessed tools as a result of the undertaken rehabilitation. There were weak correlations present between changes in the WORC and changes in the external rotator muscle strength, with correlations between WORC-Sport and EXT90⁰-AVERAGE-POWER and PEAK-TORQUE also being found statistically significant. Correlations of changes in the CMS scale with changes in the external rotator muscle strength were weak and statistically insignificant. It seems that the WORC questionnaire can be recommended more for the population after rotator cuff repair, which allows for a reliable assessment of patients' ability to function and its changes in various areas of life, and at the same time does not require a direct assessment by a clinician or researcher.

Keywords: Constant–Murley score; Western Ontario Rotator Cuff Index; muscle strength; rotator cuff injuries; shoulder pain.

MeSH terms

Humans
Muscle Strength
Ontario / epidemiology
Pain
Rotator Cuff Injuries* / surgery
Rotator Cuff* / surgery
Shoulder
Treatment Outcome

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.