Maxfacts

Shoulder

Postoperative problems affecting the shoulder include

• Reduced mobility. Neck dissections of all types interfere to a greater or lesser extent with the spinal accessory nerve. This nerve provides part of the motor innervation to the trapezius muscle, which plays a very important role in shoulder stabilisation and mobility.
• Stiffness and discomfort can result from a lack of mobility.
• Pain may be caused by muscle spasm or impingement of the muscles, tendons and bone of the shoulder as a result of trapezius muscle dysfunction.
• Altered sensation. Although this is mostly something that is noticed in the skin of the neck, any damage to the lower part of the cervical plexus of nerves (a group of nerves with a range of functionalities, arranged along the spinal cord in the neck; particularly cervical nerve C5) will create a lack of or altered sensation over the deltoid muscle (the muscle that forms the very top of the arm and thus the rounded corner of the shoulder, the so-called epaulette region (where soldiers have a patch on their upper arm)).