Neck pain afflicts almost three-quarters of adults at some
point; for nearly one in six, pain is chronic. If you suffer
from neck pain, many different forms of therapy are available,
including spinal manipulation, drug regimens and exercises
- but which form is best?
To
compare the effectiveness of three forms of neck pain therapy,
researchers followed approximately 200 people suffering from
chronic neck pain over 11 weeks of treatment, and recorded
their progress over the next two years. The patients were
randomly divided to receive 20 one-hour treatments, in one
of the methods listed below:
- spinal manipulation and light soft-tissue massage from
experienced chiropractic clinicians;
- chiropractic spinal manipulation plus rehabilitative exercise
from trained exercise therapists, including stretching and
dynamic neck exercises; or
- rehabilitative neck exercises using a variable resistance,
neck extension and rotation machine.
Patient-rated pain was lower for both exercise groups than
for manipulation alone, and the exercise groups benefited
more regarding pain, disability, improvement and health status.
Spinal manipulation plus exercise provided greater satisfaction
than manipulation alone or rehabilitative exercises, however.
The advantage of both manipulation plus exercise and machine
exercises over manipulation alone continued over the two-year
follow-up period.
If you suffer from chronic neck pain and don't know where
to turn, your local chiropractor is the best place to start.
Cervical manipulations along with regular neck exercises can
help end the pain and get you headed in the right direction.
Reference:
Evans R, Bronfort G, et al. Two-year follow-up of a randomized
clinical trial of spinal manipulation and two types of exercise
for patients with chronic neck pain. Spine 2002:27(21),
pp. 2383-2389.
To read more about neck pain, go to https://www.chiroweb.com/tyh/neckpain.html.
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