PERCEIVED SELF-REPORT OF EFFORT DURING ROTATOR CUFF & SCAPULAR REHABILITATIVE EXERCISE IN PATIENTS AFTER SHOULDER SURGERY.

Background: Rehabilitation following shoulder surgery involves the use of resistive exercise but dosing of these -exercises historically employs multiple sets of pre-determined repetitions and few reports document the perceived effort encountered by patients during these exercises for both elastic resistance and free-weights. The OMNI-Resistance Exercise Scale (OMNI-RES) has been tested and applied as a measure of perceived exertion (RPE) for resistive exercise but has not gained widespread acceptance as an optimal method for physical therapists to document RPE during rehabilitation of shoulder surgery.

Purpose: To generate descriptive values of RPE encountered during common shoulder exercises of varying resistance in patients following shoulder surgery as well as provide a comparative analysis between perceived exertion ratings of similar exercise movement patterns using elastic and traditional isotonic resistance.