Meeting with a doctor about joint pain can be confusing at times, especially because there can be so many different causes for your condition. Dr. Kevin McIntyre of Burlington Sports Therapy takes a deeper look at shoulder impingement (also known as shoulder pain) and breaks down several of the common causes. Here's an excerpt:

It's always easier to understand a condition when we simplify it. This happens quite often in the world of physical rehabilitation. An example in the knee would be the diagnosis of patellofemoral syndrome. This is a term that many practitioners use to describe a patients knee pain, yet it doesn't specifically distinguish between various causes of pain in this area. Quite often patients are diagnosed with a condition in the shoulder called impingement. Again, this is helpful for some patients so that they can understand their condition better, but it is still a very vague term.

Check out the full article and learn more about the common causes of shoulder pain.