A method for addressing shoulder issues involving each of (a) a torn rotator cuff, and (b) a post-shoulder-surgery condition, featuring applying to the region of such a rotator cuff/condition, via the associated humerus, an ambulatory, non-gravity-based, downwardly directed, and, where desired, a laterally outwardly directed, elastic traction force. Apparatus for implementing this methodology includes (a) a subject-wearable, passive, elongate, yieldable-resistance, force-applying device possessing opposite ends, and between those ends, a line of action which, with the apparatus in place relative to a subject and to the subject's shoulder and rotator cuff/condition, lies generally parallel to the long axis of the subject's associated humerus, and (b) structure associated with these opposite ends for anchoring them operatively to spaced points on the subject's anatomy in a manner whereby the force-applying device applies to the anatomy a force which tends to produce separation between the head of the humerus and the rotator cuff.