Silent Manipulation for Adhesive Capsulitis

This review aims to critically analyze the scientific literature on silent manipulation (SM) and offer an expert opinion on how past research translates to clinical practice. SM is a new treatment method for adhesive capsulitis, commonly known as frozen shoulder, in which a patient is treated with shoulder manipulation following an ultrasound-guided cervical nerve root block. SM showed good results in the short term, with improvements in range of motion (ROM), pain, and clinical scores. The results in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) were also good but were slightly worse than those in patients without DM. In addition to showing good clinical results, postprocedure magnetic resonance imaging revealed that 13.3% of patients had an articular labrum injury, and 50% had humeral bone bruising. Since this treatment method is new, reports on treatment results are limited, with only short-term results being available. Results have been reported since 2017, but the improvements in the ROM are comparable to those achieved by arthroscopic capsular release. SM is a safe and inexpensive procedure with good short-term results. However, there are still very few reports on long-term results and complications, and additional research and long-term observations are required in the future.