Effect of Upper Thoracic Manipulation on Neck Pain and Selected Muscle Activities

Cairo University (CU)

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Chronic Neck Pain

Treatments: Other: Sham Comparison; Other: Upper Thoracic Manipulation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06926738

Upper thoracic manipulation

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study will investigate the immediate and short-term effects of upper thoracic manipulation versus sham upper thoracic manipulation on Pain intensity, Cervical ROM, the myoelectric activity of the sternocleidomastoid muscle and upper trapezius muscle during Maximum voluntary isometric contraction.

Full description

This study will investigate the immediate and short-term effects of upper thoracic manipulation versus sham upper thoracic manipulation on Pain intensity measured by the visual analogue scale, Cervical ROM measured by CROM, the myoelectric activity of the sternocleidomastoid muscle and upper trapezius muscle during Maximum voluntary isometric contraction measured by Neuro-Soft using surface electrodes. All outcomes will be measured Pre-intervention, Immediately Post-Intervention, One-week Post-intervention, Two-week post-intervention.

Enrollment: 42 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 40 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

1. Male and female subjects diagnosed and classified as having chronic non-specific NP with mobility disorders based on clinical guidelines of NP:

   • Having NP for at least 3 months that may be associated with referred shoulder or upper extremity pain (Blanpied et al., 2017; Erdem et al., 2021; Puntumetakul et al., 2015).
   • Present with a limitation of cervical ROM and their pain can be provoked by sustained end-range spinal movements or positions will be included (Blanpied et al., 2017).
   • Patients present with unilateral or bilateral symptoms will be included (Blanpied et al., 2017; Yang et al., 2015).

2. Age between 18-40 (J. Dunning & Rushton, 2009)

3. Negative four tests of the Wainner cluster to exclude NP with radiating pain (Wainner et al., 2003).

4. Hypomobility of at least one of the upper thoracic vertebrae (T1-T4) during segmental mobility assessment (Ssavedra-Hernández et al., 2011).

Exclusion criteria

1. Subjects diagnosed as cervical radiculopathy or myelopathy (Ssavedra-Hernández et al., 2011).
2. A history of whiplash injury, past cervical or thoracic surgery, rheumatoid arthritis, spinal fracture, heart disease, a recent significant trauma, and meningitis (Joshi et al., 2020; Puntumetakul et al., 2015).
3. The presence of contraindications of spinal manipulation as spinal infection and spinal osteoporosis(Ssavedra-Hernández et al., 2011).

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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42 participants in 2 patient groups

Upper thoracic manipulation group

Experimental group

Description:

The Patients in this group will receive Upper Thoracic Manipulation.

Treatment:

Other: Upper Thoracic Manipulation

Sham Upper Thoracic Manipulation

Sham Comparator group

Description:

The patients in this group will receive the sham upper thoracic manipulation.

Treatment:

Other: Sham Comparison