Shoulder proprioception: a comparison between the shoulder joint in healthy and surgically repaired shoulders

Proprioceptive mechanisms appear to play a role in stabilizing the glenohum eral joint and may serve as a means for interplay between the static stabil izers and the dynamic muscle restraints. The aim of this study was to inves tigate proprioception of the joint in healthy and surgically repaired shoul ders. Shoulder proprioception was measured in 44 subjects who were assigned to two experimental groups: group 1, healthy subjects (n = 24); and group 2, patients who have undergone surgical reconstruction (n = 20). Joint posi tion sense was measured with a Cybex NORM isokinetic dynamometer. The resul ts revealed no significant differences in proprioception between the domina nt and nondominant shoulders in group 1. No significant mean differences we re revealed between the surgical and contralateral shoulder in group 2 unde r any test condition. These results imply that arm dominance in healthy ind ividuals does not influence the proprioceptive sensibility and that reconst ructive surgery appears to restore some of these proprioception characteris tics.