What Predicts Who Still Feels Better a Year Later

Physical therapists and physical therapist assistants who work with patients presenting with shoulder pain of a subacromial origin in outpatient, primary care, or clinic-based rehabilitation settings.

Licensed physical therapists and physical therapist assistants. The material is also relevant to occupational therapists and athletic trainers who manage shoulder complaints, and to clinical educators reviewing prognostic research.

Intended audience

Physical Therapy

Level

Intermediate

Delivery format

Online, asynchronous, self-paced course: interactive reading with audio or video, and a scored post-test.

Based on

This course reports on a single open-access research article. Every finding, figure, and conclusion described in the lessons comes from that article and from nothing else.

Kromer TO, Kohl M, Bastiaenen CHG. Factors predicting long-term outcomes following physiotherapy in patients with subacromial pain syndrome: a secondary analysis. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders. 2024;25:579.

Published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The original randomized controlled trial was registered at Current Controlled Trials (ISRCTN86900354) on March 17, 2010, and received ethical approval from the Medical Ethics Committee of the Munich University Hospital, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany.

How to read the numbers in this course

The authors describe their work as exploratory. This course reports what they found and how confident they were, in plain language. Where a result was uncertain, that uncertainty is stated in words rather than in statistical notation.

After completing this course, you will be able to:

1. Describe the population, the design, and the two one-year outcome measures used in this secondary analysis of physiotherapy for subacromial pain syndrome.
2. Name the baseline and early-change factors the authors identified as positive predictors and as negative predictors of one-year outcomes.
3. State the limitations the authors placed on their own findings and the conclusion they drew for clinical assessment and future prediction research.

1. Start Here: How This Course Works
2. The Podcast: Expectations, Fear-Avoidance, and the First Five Weeks (about nine minutes)
3. Why Prognosis Is Hard to Pin Down in Subacromial Pain Syndrome
4. How the Researchers Searched for Predictors
5. What Separated the Patients Who Felt Much Better From Those Who Did Not
6. What This Analysis Could Not Settle
7. What the Authors Say the Findings Could Mean in the Clinic
8. Key Takeaways
9. Post-Test and Course Evaluation

Quinn Millington, PT, DPT, ECS is the instructor of record: the licensed clinician who reviewed this course and signed off on it. The name and credentials print on the certificate.

Disclosures. This course was developed by The ConEd Solution, which has a financial interest in its sale. No outside funding or sponsorship was received. The instructor of record has no affiliation with the authors of the source publication or their institutions.

This course awards 0.5 contact hours (30 min). How you earn them:

1. Complete the course. Every lesson, in order.
2. Pass the post-test. Score 80% or higher. Retakes are allowed.
3. Complete the evaluation. A short form rating each learning objective and the course.
4. Download your certificate. It is issued on completion and stays available in My Account.

The episode time is its measured length. Reading, post-test and evaluation times are estimates.

This course is designed to satisfy the quality requirements state boards set for continuing education. Requirements vary by state, and confirming that a course fits your renewal is up to you. Each state’s own acceptance statement is in the credit panel on this page.

1. Source Material for This Course
2. This course reports on a single open-access research article. Every finding, figure, and conclusion described in the lessons comes from that article and from nothing else.
3. Kromer TO, Kohl M, Bastiaenen CHG. Factors predicting long-term outcomes following physiotherapy in patients with subacromial pain syndrome: a secondary analysis. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders. 2024;25:579.
4. Published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The original randomized controlled trial was registered at Current Controlled Trials (ISRCTN86900354) on March 17, 2010, and received ethical approval from the Medical Ethics Committee of the Munich University Hospital, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany.
5. How to read the numbers in this course
6. The authors describe their work as exploratory. This course reports what they found and how confident they were, in plain language. Where a result was uncertain, that uncertainty is stated in words rather than in statistical notation.