Arthroscopy and the painful shoulder
The painful shoulder is a common problem. This may be related to injury but it can also occur spontaneously. The diagnosis is still predominantly dependant on providing a good medical history. The term arthroscopy refers to keyhole surgery of the shoulder. It was popularised in the 1980s and was initially used predominantly as a diagnostic procedure. Shoulder arthroscopy has provided us with the opportunity to investigate the shoulder in a dynamic way and has identified diagnoses that were not previously known or understood.