Ann Cools - Shoulder Rehabilitation: What's new from a scientific and clinical point of view? (Level I)

Course goals and content

Course dates: Wednesday 20th - Thursday 21st November 2024

The goal of this 2-day shoulder course is to update knowledge and practical skills with respect to shoulder rehabilitation, debating the most common shoulder disorders like rotator cuff disorders, traumatic and atraumatic instability, shoulder stiffness, the involvement of the scapula, sport-specific shoulder pain etc.

The theoretical background is updated based on recent literature and immediately applied into the practice. New insights as well as points of debate are presented and discussed in an interactive manner. We perform clinical examination based on evidence based practice principles, including scientific evidence and clinical expertise. Several approaches of clinical examination are critically discussed. During the rehabilitation part of this course, general clinical reasoning principles, as well as specific therapeutic indications are discussed and put into practice during interactive workshops, in which all demonstrated and discussed exercises and additional modalities are performed and experienced.

This 2- day course consists of theoretical background sessions (30%), critical interactive discussions (20%) and practical sessions (50%). The target public is physiotherapists with a special interest for shoulder rehabilitation. Novice as well as experienced physiotherapists have the opportunity to update their knowledge and skills. General insights in shoulder anatomy, biomechanics, including pathomechanical injury mechanisms, are assumed to be acquired. 

Goals and competences to achieve

After completion of this course, the participant will have reached the following competences:

• The participant has updated insights in the most common disorders of the shoulder girdle, including rotator cuff tendinopathy, rotator cuff tears, traumatic, atraumatic and acquired shoulder instability, scapular dyskinesis, the sporting shoulder and throwing related shoulder pain
• The participant can apply clinical reasoning principles and algorithms for the functional clinical examination of the shoulder girdle
• The participant can apply clinical reasoning principles and algorithms for the treatment of the most common shoulder pathologies
• The participant can conceptualize, organize, perform, critically reflect, and remediate a progressive treatment program for the patient with shoulder pain
• The participant performs all skills and exercises, comprised in the course, during the practical sessions of the course
• The participant can critically discuss examination and treatment principles with the course teacher and his peers during the interactive sessions
• The participant can integrate recent scientific knowledge (provided by scientific papers) into the clinical reasoning process of shoulder examination and rehabilitation

Ann Cools (PT, PhD) is a physiotherapist, working as an associate professor at the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences and Physiotherapy at the Ghent University, Belgium. Her topic of research and teaching expertise, is shoulder rehabilitation in general, and sport specific approach and scapular involvement in particular. Besides her academic work, she runs a shoulder clinic in a private practice.

She finished her PhD in 2003, debating scapular involvement in sports related shoulder pain in the overhead athlete, and she has published numerous papers in peer-reviewed international journals, wrote contributions and chapters in several international recognized books, and gives courses on a national and international level. She was head of the Physical Therapy Education at the Ghent University 2008-2016, and was founding member and president of the European Society of Shoulder and Elbow Rehabilitation (EUSSER) 2008-2012. Since 2016, she is also affiliated as senior researcher to the Department of Physiotherapy of the Bispebjerg Hospital and the Department of Sports Medicine, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

She is currently a member of the Board of the International Congress of Shoulder and Elbow Therapists, organizing the 3-annual world congress for shoulder and elbow therapists, and is founding board member of the Flemish Shoulder Network. 

Wednesday 20th November, 2024

Thursday 21st November, 2024

1. The participant has to update his knowledge on basic anatomy and kinesiology of the shoulder girdle, and on the kinematics of the throwing shoulder (phases of throwing, joint positions and possible threats to injury, muscle activity patterns). Additionally, the participant needs to have basic knowledge on the most common shoulder disorders, namely rotator cuff tendinopathy, degenerative tears, instability, biceps pathology, SLAP lesions, frozen shoulder, scapular disorders.

2. It is advised that the forwarded literature (scientific papers) is read prior to the start of the course. The papers will be used during the course in a clinically relevant application, while critically interpreted. 

3. The participant should critically reflect on his/her own clinical reasoning for shoulder examination and rehabilitation. 

Venue address

Liverpool Hope University, Hope Park Campus, Childwall, Liverpool L16 9JD.

Registration: EDEN Building (Grid reference 8, Map of Hope Park Campus). The building is fully accessible to all visitors.