Muscle Energy Technique and Static Stretching on Pain Intensity and Functional Disability in Patients With Mechanical Neck Pain

Effects Muscle Energy Technique and Static Stretching on Pain Intensity and Functional Disability in Patients With Mechanical Neck Pain: A Randomized Control Study

Neck pain is becoming increasingly common throughout the world with a considerable impact on individuals, communities, health-care systems and businesses (Hoy et al, 2011).Neck pain is a common problem within our society affecting individual's physical and social functioning considerably and interfering with the patient's daily activities. There is lack of evidence to allow conclusions to be drawn about the effectiveness of MET when compared with stretching exercises for relieving mechanical neck pain. Therefore, this study is designed to examine the effect of MET, static stretching and to compare their effects on pain intensity and functional disability in patient with mechanical neck pain.

This experimental study purposively recruited 24 subjects (male: n=10, female: n = 14) with mechanical neck pain from the Outpatient Physiotherapy Department of the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex, Ile-Ife. Subjects were randomly allocated into the MET and SS groups. Subjects in MET group received 6 treatment sessions of Muscle Energy Technique in addition to conventional physiotherapy treatments. Patients in SS group received 6 treatment sessions of Static Stretching in addition to conventional physiotherapy treatments. All subjects were treated twice a week for six weeks. Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and Neck Disability Index (NDI) were used to assess the pain intensity and functional disability at baseline, 3rd week and 6th week of treatment sessions respectively. Descriptive and Inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. Alpha level was set at < 0.05.

Inclusion Criteria:i. Male and female patients with history of mechanical neck pain of more than 3 months

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients with acute neck pain
• Subjects were excluded if they have neck pain associated with an underlying pathology such as fracture of the cervical spine, neck pain radiating into the arms or upper extremity or associated with headaches or facial pain, malignancy, infections, inflammatory disorders, osteoporosis or cases of disc prolapse.
• Patients with history of surgery of the cervical spine during the previous 12months