Introduction:

Disabling shoulder problems in the elderly are common.

Objective:

To quantify the diagnoses found in 100 consecutive shoulders cases in rehabilitation and its functional impact on the DASH scale.

Material and methods:

100 consecutive patients with age > 65 years received in the Rehabilitation Department, performing diagnosis and functional assessment in the DASH scale.

Results:

Distribution by gender with predominance of the female (67%); the age showed variation from 65 to 98 years with average and SD 78 ± 12. Ten different diagnoses were found: supraspinatus tendon rupture (58%); gleno-humeral osteoarthritis (11%); impingement syndrome (9%); proximal humeral fracture (9%); acromio-clavicular osteoarthritis (7%); long biceps tendon rupture (2%); scapula fracture (1%); humeral head avascular necrosis (1%); neglected gleno-humeral dislocation (1%) and circumflex nerve injury (1%). The distribution corresponded to 52% right, 40% left and 8% bilateral. The DASH scale showed variation from 94 to 52% with mean and SD 71 ± 22.3. Elderly shoulder problems are associated with disability, its relation with DASH is not clear.