Comparison of Thoracic Manipulation and MET (Muscle Energy Technique) on Chronic Mechanical Neck ache: A Randomized Control Trail

Abstract

Chronic mechanical neck ache is one of the most disabling conditions in general population which affects individuals’ Activities of Daily Living (ADLs). Objective: To compare the effectiveness of thoracic manipulation and MET on chronic mechanical neck ache. Methods: It was a single blind randomized clinical trial registered at ClivicalTrial.gov under trial registry no# NCT05138199. Non-probability simple random sampling was used to recruit over 30 patients. This study was conducted at Rawal General and Dental Hospital, Islamabad and at the Physiotherapy Clinic Rawalpindi. Two groups were made, group “A” was termed as control group and received MET (2 sessions/week) and group “B” was termed as experimental group and received thoracic manipulation (1 session/week), for six weeks each. Effect of these interventions were evaluated on frequency of pain, duration of pain and Numeric Pain Rating Scale (NPRS). As data were not normally distributed, we employed Wilcoxon Rank test for intra-group analysis and Man Whitney U test for inter-group analysis. Results: Both groups mean +SD of age, gender, and marital status was 26.27+8.55 and 1.60+0.49, 1.20+0.40, respectively. Wilcoxon Rank test showed marked difference within both groups as p-value was <0.05 and “r value >0.05” showed larger effect of interventions. Man-Whitney U test showed no significant difference between groups as p-vale was >0.05. Conclusion: Both manipulation and MET are effective for management of chronic mechanical neck ache and both have same impact on NPS.