Exercise may be best for shoulder pain

September 16, 2009 A new study finds supervised exercise is better than shockwave treatment for relieving chronic shoulder pain.

Shockwave involves low to medium energy pulses delivered into the tissue. It's a treatment that's widely used to treat shoulder pain. That's even though a number of studies have suggested it's not effective.

This latest study published online in BMJ found, after a period of 18 weeks, 64 percent of those in the exercise group and 36 percent of those in the shockwave therapy group had reduced pain and disability scores.

Also, more patients in the exercise group were able to return to work earlier.