Rotator Cuff

What Is a Rotator Cuff?

Like all of your shoulder anatomy, it is a highly complex part of the human body. Your shoulder is where four different muscles come together to cover the humerus bone, which is also known as the upper arm bone. This upper arm bone is the long bone that runs from your shoulder to your elbow.

The point in your rotator cuff where these four muscles come together is often referred to as your SITS muscle. SITS is an acronym that uses the first letter of each of the four muscles that come together here, including the supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis muscles. These muscles come up from the scapula (shoulder blade) and join at the top of your upper arm bone (humerus) to create a cuff around your glenohumeral (GH) joint.

What Causes It to Tear?

Often confused with shoulder dislocation, there are four key causes of injuries. To prevent and understand how to prevent aggravating an existing injury, it is essential to look at the root cause. Here are four common causes.

Physically Demanding Jobs

People who work in very physical jobs like home renovations or factory work can get degenerative shoulder wear. This is also common in industries like healthcare or retail work where people are regularly lifting heavy things, also likely to experience lower back pains.

Athletes and Sports

Whether you are a serious athlete or just try to get out and play as often as possible, you are at an increased risk of suffering from a sports injury. These are particularly common for basketball players and weightlifters.

Are you seeking sports injury treatment? Look no further and talk to our orthopaedic doctors here at Ray of Health today!

Impact Injuries

It is a natural reaction to reach out with your hands when you are falling. While this can protect other areas of your body, it leaves you at an increased risk of injury. Impact injuries can also cause broken ankles or meniscus tears.

Wear and Tear with Age

From age 40 and beyond, your odds of having an age-related shoulder injury are progressively increased as you get older.

You might want to talk to us regarding shoulder dislocation treatment plans if you suspect there's a possibility of such an injury.

What Are the Types of Injuries?

When you are dealing with a rotator cuff tear, you may have either a full or partial tear to one or more of the muscles located inside of the socket of your shoulder. An injury can be the result of long-term wear and tear or it may be a sudden injury.

You can get a tear in any one of the four muscles, and they can vary significantly in their severity. When it is not a complete tear, it is referred to as tendinopathy and it is one of the most common causes of pain. More often than not, these incomplete tears happen in the supraspinatus muscle, which is the muscle that you use when you lift your arm away from your body. While this is a common case, it is far from the only one. Let’s look at a full range of injuries.

When you get a diagnosis, your tear will be classified into one of the following categories.

• Partial tear: When your tendon is damaged but not completely severed, you have what is called a partial tear. This is the least severe of all of the potential rotator cuff injuries.
• Complete tear: If the soft tissue is torn completely and now has two separate pieces, you have a complete tear.

Image Credit: Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Institute

In addition to classifying the severity of a tear, your doctor will also identify the cause of your injury. This aspect is also important because it impacts the treatment of your rotator cuff injury.

While there are many different causes of injuries and countless different circumstances that may lead to the injury. We classify them into one of two categories: acute tears and degenerative tears.