The Effects of Spinal Manipulation on Performance on Neck Pain Patients During a Fitts' Task

University of Manitoba

Status

Completed

Conditions

Chronic Neck Pain

Treatments

Other: High velocity/low amplitude cervical spine manipulation

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT04347551

B2020:010

Details and patient eligibility

About

The objective of this study is to quantify motor performance, this study will use an eye movement Fitts' task to examine the effects of cervical spine manipulation on participants with chronic neck pain and the subsequent changes to saccade movement time. This study will also include a head movement Fitts' task which has previously reported a reduction in head movement time in chronic neck pain participants after cervical spine manipulation.

This is an observational within-subjects design that involves a pre/post cervical spine manipulation intervention on participants (n=20) with chronic neck pain and asymptomatic controls (n=20). All participants will complete an eye movement and head movement Fitts' task before and after cervical spine manipulation to identify any changes in saccade and head movement time, saccade and head peak velocity, and time to peak saccade and head velocity.

Full description

The purpose of this study is to measure the effects of cervical spine manipulation on the motor performance of participants with and without chronic neck pain.

The objective of this pre/post design study is to apply spinal manipulation of the cervical spine to participants with chronic neck pain and participants who are asymptomatic for neck pain, and to measure the subsequent changes of movement time of the eyes during an eye movement Fitts' task using eye-tracker technology.

This study will also include a head movement Fitts' task, which has been previously shown to identify a reduction in head movement time in participants after receiving cervical spine manipulation. The head movement task, which has a biomechanical basis, will serve as a comparator to the eye movement task, which has a neurophysiologic basis. Changes in head and eye movement time are both measures of motor performance.

The hypothesis for the eye movement Fitts' task, is that the eye movement time will be increase with larger distances between targets and will not be affected by changes in target width. It is anticipated that the eye movement time will reduce in the neck pain group following spinal manipulation in comparison to the asymptomatic group. We hypothesize that during the head movement task, symptomatic participants will experience a decrease in head movement time as compared to the asymptomatic group after spinal manipulation. We further hypothesize that head movement time will be increase with larger target distances and smaller target widths.

Enrollment

40 patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 40 years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Participants with neck pain:

Inclusion criteria

Between the ages of 18 and 40
Neck pain for at least 3 months
Palpable spinal segmental fixations at C1-7
Neck pain must be reproducible by neck movements and/or provocative
Normal or corrected-to-normal vision

Exclusion criteria

Contraindications to spinal manipulation
Can't be calibrated during the eye movement Fitts task (excluded from eye movement test only)
Progressive neurologic deficits
Cervical spine trauma or surgery
Infection, tumor, osteoporosis, inflammatory spondyloarthropathy, spinal fracture, and a history of vestibular/inner ear dysfunction
Diagnosed with an autonomic disorder such as Horner's syndrome
Any current ocular and/or retinal disease, Diabetes, a history of head trauma
Currently using opioids, recreational drugs or have a history of substance abuse

Asymptomatic participants:

Inclusion criteria

Between the ages of 18 and 40
No neck pain for at least 3 months
Palpable spinal segmental fixations at C1-7
Normal or corrected-to-normal vision

Exclusion criteria

Contraindications to spinal manipulation
Can't be calibrated during the eye movement Fitts task (excluded from eye movement test only)
Progressive neurologic deficits
Cervical spine trauma or surgery
Infection, tumor, osteoporosis, inflammatory spondyloarthropathy, spinal fracture, and a history of vestibular/inner ear dysfunction
Diagnosed with an autonomic disorder such as Horner's syndrome
Any current ocular and/or retinal disease, Diabetes, a history of head trauma
Currently using opioids, recreational drugs or have a history of substance abuse