Free online courseElbow assessment

Course Description

Confident elbow assessment can be the difference between a vague impression and a clear clinical decision. This free online course is designed for physiotherapy learners and practicing clinicians who want a practical, repeatable approach to evaluating elbow pain, loss of motion, and functional limitation. Instead of relying on guesswork, you will build a structured assessment flow that helps you identify likely pain sources, select appropriate tests, and interpret findings in a way that supports sound clinical reasoning.

Through guided demonstrations and targeted practice questions, you will strengthen your ability to move from initial observation to hands-on examination with purpose. You will refine how you look for inflammatory presentations, compare sides, and detect cues that suggest specific tissue involvement. Palpation becomes more than a routine step as you learn to link tenderness patterns with common clinical presentations and to distinguish between findings that are relevant and those that are simply incidental.

The course also improves how you assess movement, helping you capture active and passive range of motion clearly and consistently, including how to document symptoms and quality of movement in a way that supports follow-up and progress tracking. You will sharpen resisted testing technique and learn how it fits into a broader decision-making process, especially when differentiating muscular or tendinous contributions from joint or ligament structures.

Special tests are presented in a clinically meaningful context so you can choose them for the right reasons, not just because they are familiar. You will understand when tests for lateral epicondylitis and medial epicondylitis are useful, how stress testing informs ligament integrity, and how screening for cubital tunnel syndrome can guide next steps. By the end, you will be better prepared to assess elbow presentations confidently, communicate findings clearly, and plan care with greater precision. Study at your own pace online, and earn a certificate if you choose.