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In instances where the evidence was insufficient to make a recommendation for practice, we
reserved judgement.
We have not considered economic data in this iteration of the guidelines.
Feedback from target audience
We engaged representative members of our diverse target audience (a Delphi expert panel) to feed
back to us during the development process, thus ensuring the guidelines’ ‘fitness for purpose’
(APPENDIX G).
Future modules
Future modules of these guidelines will incorporate acupuncture, corticosteroid injections and
capsular distension, thus encompassing other interventions that might be used by physiotherapists.
The guidelines’ electronic format will facilitate this staged process.
Structure
The guidelines are presented in three parts, as follows.
Part 1: Background, diagnosis, assessment and overview of strategies for
managing contracted (frozen) shoulder
Part 2: Systematic review and meta-analysis of treatment interventions
This is a systematic review of treatment interventions which, in this first module (version 1.X), is
restricted to ‘standard physiotherapy’. We have defined ‘standard physiotherapy’ as any
intervention(s) that might be undertaken by a graduate physiotherapist without additional training,
namely: advice; exercise therapy; manual therapy; electrotherapy; heat or cold treatments;
ultrasound; or any combination of these.
Part 3: Recommendations for management of contracted (frozen) shoulder
Recommendations for management are derived from the systematic review using the GRADE
system.
Part 4: Recommendations for research
Part 5: APPENDICES
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