The first sign that retired accountant Kathey Parcels had torn her left rotator cuff was pain, sudden and acute pain.
“It was really bad,” said Parcels, who experienced the injury three years ago when she was 73. “You couldn’t sleep or lean on it. You couldn’t lift things up.”
She blames her injury on the hours she spent with arms overhead while winterizing her windows with shrink wrap and putting a temporary cover over a hole in her bathroom ceiling, the result of an upstairs neighbor’s burst pipe.
But Northeastern experts in physical therapy and medicine say it’s likely that tears or other abnormalities were already present in her rotator cuffs as a normal part of aging.
While falls and other injuries can cause acute injury to the rotator cuff, most abnormalities are the result of everyday use of the muscles, said Jason Parente, associate clinical professor in medicine sciences and director of Northeastern’s physician assistant program.
“It’s a chronic process. It’s wear and tear with age,” said Parente, who added that he sees many patients with rotator cuff injuries at his job in the emergency room at Massachusetts General Hospital, and most of these patients are middle aged or over.
