Health-Enabling Technologies to Assist Patients With Musculoskeletal Shoulder Disorders When Exercising at Home: Scoping Review.
Lena Elgert, Bianca Steiner, Birgit Saalfeld and 2 others
PMID 33538701WHAT IT FOUND
Most home exercise technologies for shoulder pain are prototypes that track range of motion but rarely check movement quality.
Only eight studies showed significant clinical improvements, so these tools currently assist rather than replace therapy.
Key findings
01The majority of reviewed technologies are in early development phases, with 48 articles reporting phase 0 testing and only five reporting phase 3 effectiveness studies.
02Only eight articles reported significant improvements in outcomes like pain or mobility, and these studies had small sample sizes and varying designs.
03Technologies primarily monitor simple metrics like range of motion, with few assessing movement quality parameters such as smoothness or posture control.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The review did not perform a quality assessment of the included studies or a meta-analysis due to heterogeneous designs. Most included studies had small sample sizes, limiting the generalisability of the reported effectiveness. Only one reviewer extracted data for the majority of the articles after a pilot phase, which may affect reliability. The search was limited to peer-reviewed articles, potentially missing commercially available technologies not yet published in academic journals.
Declared interests
None declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume these technologies are proven effective for all shoulder conditions. Most are prototypes with limited evidence, and significant clinical improvements were found in only eight studies with small samples and varying designs.