Free online courseShoulder Assessment

Course Description

Accurate shoulder assessment is one of the most valuable skills in physiotherapy, because small clinical details can change your hypothesis, your treatment priorities, and the outcomes your patients feel day to day. This free online course helps you build a confident, repeatable approach to evaluating the shoulder complex, from first look to informed clinical decision-making. You will learn to recognize relevant postural and movement clues, identify patterns associated with pain, and connect what you observe to meaningful next steps.

You will strengthen your ability to assess active range of motion with clear reasoning and good test positioning, then progress to resisted isometric testing to interpret pain, weakness, and symptom reproduction. The course also develops your practical understanding of joint play and how to use it to explore capsular behavior and mobility limitations in the glenohumeral joint. These foundations support more precise hypotheses when symptoms are vague, when movement quality is altered, or when functional complaints do not match a simple tissue story.

From there, you will learn how to select and perform common clinical tests used in shoulder girdle assessment, impingement presentations, instability, and scapular dyskinesis. Beyond simply memorizing maneuvers, the course focuses on execution details and interpretation, helping you combine findings instead of relying on a single test result. You will also see how sensitivity and specificity influence confidence in a finding, so you can communicate risk, likely structures involved, and clinical reasoning more clearly.

Designed for physiotherapy students, clinicians, and other health professionals who want a structured refresher, this course supports better exam flow, better documentation, and more consistent decision-making. By the end, you should feel more prepared to screen shoulder complaints, differentiate common patterns such as impingement or instability, and guide patients with clearer, evidence-aware reasoning that fits everyday practice.