Manual Therapy with Rehabilitation of Cervical Sensorimotor Control for Neck Pain
- Details
- Dr. Shawn Thistle
Between 50% and 85% of persons with neck pain do not attain complete resolution of their symptoms, possibly due to altered afferent/sensory input from cervical proprioceptors. Research has shown that such altered afferentation can result in impaired joint proprioception, reduced head and eye movement control and postural instability, with subsequent decreased physical performance and increased concerns about falling in older persons.
Manual therapy and specific therapeutic exercise are accepted modalities in the management of neck pain and have been shown to improve sensorimotor deficits, including joint position sense (JPS) and balance. However, it is not known whether improvements in cervical proprioception and balance are due to sensorimotor training, the specific type of sensorimotor training or the neck intervention.
Therefore, to determine which are the most efficient and effective treatment strategies for patients with neck pain and sensorimotor deficits, a randomized controlled trial was designed to study the effectiveness of adding cervical JPS/oculomotor control (OC) and/or balance exercises to local neck treatment (manual therapy and therapeutic exercise) on measures of joint position error (JPE) and postural sway.
THIS WEEK'S RESEARCH REVIEW: “Manual Therapy with Rehabilitation of Cervical Sensorimotor Control for Neck Pain”
This paper was published in Musculoskeletal Science and Practice (2023) and this Review is posted in Neck Pain, Geriatrics, Rehabilitation and the 2023 Archive.
