School of Medicine

Wheelchair-bound paraplegic patients are especially prone to rotator cuff lesions as they excessively load their shoulder joint and muscles. To properly manage their care and to ensure that they do not suffer loss of shoulder functionality, it is essential to understand the physiological and anatomical changes to the rotator cuff muscle and underlying shoulder joint structure in this particular groups of patients. We retrospectively reviewed MRI data obtained on paraplegic and able-bodied patients and did not find any significant changes in shoulder pathoanatomy. The study did have several limitations which could be further investigated to elucidate a few conflicting findings.