Jan
Sorry to hear all you have been through with your thoracic outlet. I am a physical therapist and can answer your question about aqua therapy. It consists of doing exercises in warm water. Doing them in water take away the resistance and make it easier to move. Are you seeing a PT? Other exercises that don't require a lot of strengh are isometric excercise, where you tighten the muscle but don't move the joint and pendulum exercise where you do the exercise in a gravity elimiated position. If you are not going to PT ask your doc for a script to go. I would venture to guess that you will get most of your strength back but it is a slow process. Please keep the range of motion good with assisted exericse. Good luck