Sulcus Sign | Inferior Instability

Execution:

1. Patient is in standing position with relaxed shoulder muscles
2. The examiner stabilizes the patient’s upper body by putting one hand on the patient’s opposite shoulder
3. The examiner grabs on to the patient’s affected arm and pulls distally

 

Positive Outcome: The sulcus sign is the appearance of a dip under the acromion (negative in the photo above)

Study	Reliability	Sn	Sp	LR+	LR-
Tzannes et al. (2004)	Inter-rater ICC=0.6	NA	NA	NA	NA
Eshoj et al. (2018) >1cm movement	Inter-rater ĸ=0.48	NA	NA	NA	NA