A Clinician’s Guide to Differential Diagnosis of the Neck and Shoulder

Course Description:

Name some reasons that it is important for a clinician to have a good understanding of differential diagnosis…..ANNND GO!!

1. Direct Access
2. Early detection of conditions that mimic musculoskeletal conditions
3. Patients are discharged “quicker and sicker” from acute care
4. Patients may disclose information to their therapist which might have been unknown to the physician…..AND many more!

Let Dr. Rina Pandya help you feel more confident in your differential diagnosis skills. 

This is course 3.  

Course one is A Clinician’s Guide to Differential Diagnosis.
Course two is A Clinician’s Guide to Lower Extremity Differential Diagnosis, Pathologies and Special Tests.
In this course, Dr. Pandya will cover how:

• To understand how to perform differential diagnosis of shoulder and neck pain
• Analyze and diagnose potential red flags and integrate the issues into the clinical assessment
• Identify and understand the review of systems: CVS, CRPS, Renal, GI, Liver, Rheumatic causes, Infection, Oncologic and Gynecologic
• Utilize clinical treatments in accordance with the latest clinical practice guidelines and evidence-based practice
• Identify systemic reasons for shoulder and neck pain
• Identify informed decisions in treatment choices applicable to the patients or appropriate referral to the physician

Methods of Instruction:

Online audio/video course

Course Instructor:

Rina Pandya, PT, DPT

Target Audience:

Physical Therapists, Physical Therapist Assistants, Occupational Therapists, Occupational Therapist Assistants and Athletic Trainers.

Educational Level:

Intermediate

Prerequisites:

None

Course Goals and Objectives:

At the completion of this course, participants should be able to:

1. Identify Reasons for Screening and Red Flag histories
2. Recognize Guidelines for Physician Referral for: General Systemic, Women’s Health and Vital Signs
3. Identify differential diagnoses of the cervical spine
4. Recognize systemic causes of headaches, cardiac causes of neck pain, pulmonary causes of neck pain, and viscerogenic causes of neck pain
5. Recognize referred pain patterns
6. Identify the differential diagnoses of headaches and subsequent treatment strategies
7. Recognize Evidence-Based Treatment Strategies for neck pain
8. Identify the differential diagnoses of shoulder pain along with systemic causes and red flags
9. Differentiate between systemic causes of right and left shoulder pain, CVS causes of shoulder pain, pulmonary reasons for shoulder pain, GI causes of shoulder pain, renal causes of shoulder pain and infectious causes of shoulder pain
10. Recognize common shoulder musculoskeletal diagnoses

Criteria for Obtaining Continuing Education Credits:

A score of 70% or greater on the post-test