Musab Bin Noor, Aamir Waheed Butt, Waseem Iqbal, Maimuna Rashid.
A comparison of suprascapular nerve block vs intraarticular steroid injection in improvement of hemiplegic shoulder pain.
Pak Armed Forces Med J Jan ;71(6):1971-75.

Objectives:To compare the mean improvement in pain on Visual Analogue Scale by Suprascapular Nerve block and Intra-articular steroid injection in patients with hemiplegic shoulder pain. Study Design:Randomized Controlled Trial Place and Duration of Study:Pain Clinic,Armed Forces Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine Rawalpindi from 25th October 2017 to 24th April 2018 Patients & Methods:60 patients with CVA and shoulder pain on hemiplegic side for at least 2 weeks were included in study after non-probability consecutive sampling after meeting inclusion criteria. Subjects were randomized by lottery into two groups; Group A receiving Suprascapular Nerve block with 5ml of 1% Lignocaine with Group B receiving Intra-articular 40mg Triamcinolone Acetonide plus 1 ml of 1% Lignocaine injections. Mean change in pain scores on VAS was calculated between score at baseline and at 4 weeks post-intervention Results:The mean age of patients in group A was 59.17 +- 9.81 years and in group B was 39.96 +- 11.11 years. Out of 60 patients, 34 (56.67%) were males and 26 (43.33%) were females with male to female ratio of 1.3:1. Mean duration of stroke was 7.50 +- 2.66 months. Mean pain change on VAS in Group A (Suprascapular Nerve block) was 3.83 +- 1.12 cm while in Group B (Intra-articular steroid injection) it was 2.17 +- 0.99 cm (p-value = 0.0001). Conclusion:This study concluded that Suprascapular Nerve block offered better improvement in hemiplegic shoulder pain on Visual Analogue Scale at 4 weeks as compared to intraarticular steroid injection.

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