Your rotator cuff is in your shoulder.  It’s made up of 4 muscles.  The acronym for these muscles is SITS.  That stands for the supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis.  These muscles are responsible for most of the motion of the shoulder, primarily – you guessed it – rotation.  Everyone has heard of a rotator cuff tear.  Patients or friends and family would commonly say “I have a rotary cuff problem.”  It’s not rotary, it’s rotator.  Anyway, whether you had a stroke or have some other shoulder problems, these muscles are probably weak.  Even if you have no problem at all, these muscles are probably weak.  It’s very important to make these muscles strong, they’re the foundation of the shoulder.  Weakness of these muscles is what causes the shoulder to sublux in some stroke patients.  But they’re not the cause of all shoulder pain after a stroke, read this.  Get your rotator cuff strong by doing these exercises.  And these.

Categories: Health, Rehab, Stroke stuff

Tags: cerebellar stroke, infraspinatus muscle, Rotator cuff, Shoulder, shoulder subluxation, Stroke, Subscapularis muscle, supraspinatus muscle, Teres minor muscle