At the examination of complex movements we can meet a symptom of painful arc. This symptom demonstrates itself by a rise of a pain in the shoulder girdle from a certain level of elevation which disappears after continuing of the movement, and at the maximal extension is not present again. If the limb returns back from the maximal to the zero position, the pain is there in the same section. This arc is present at active and passive movements, at elevation of the limb in flexion and abduction. A condition for its representing is a slow moving. Painful arc is mostly present in the extension among 60 to 120 degrees. At this angle during the elevation of the limb there is the biggest abaissement of subacromial space by the head of the humerus. If the structures in the subacromial space are damaged, the pain is called up during the pressure on them (see impigement syndrome). Painful arc is then the clinic symptom of the affection of all the structures of the subacromial space, and it does not belong to the diagnostic activities which would closely specify the affected structure.
