Early results of supervised versus unsupervised rehabilitation of patients with cervical pain.

PURPOSE: Comparison of early effects of supervised (led by physiotherapist) and unsupervised rehabilitation protocols in patients with myofascial pain syndrome, disk-root conflict and degenerative spine disease at cervical level.

METHODS

Three groups of patients (n = 60 each) with clinically and neurophysiologically confirmed myofascial pain syndrome, disk-root conflict and degenerative spine disease were randomly subdivided to supervised and unsupervised treatment subgroups (n = 30 each). Thirty healthy subjects with similar demographic and anthropometric properties as patients were enrolled to control group. Patients were examined before and after rehabilitation with visual analog scale of pain, Spurling's test, painful passive elongation and active trigger points detection in trapezius muscle, sensory perception studies and surface electromyography (at rest, during maximal contraction) and electroneurography.

RESULTS

Supervised treatment resulted in decrease of pain intensity (P = .001) and Spurling's symptoms incidence (P = .008) in patients from disk-root conflict group. Painful elongation and incidence of trigger points in trapezius muscle were the least observed at P = .009 after supervised therapy of myofascial pain syndrome. Supervised therapy resulted in decrease of resting electromyography amplitude and increase of maximal contraction electromyography amplitude from trapezius muscle (P = .02) in myofascial pain syndrome patients and from biceps and abductor pollicis brevis muscles of patients from other groups (P from .05 to .001). Median nerve electroneurography and sensory perception results improved at P = .05 after supervised treatment in disk-root conflict group.

CONCLUSIONS

Twenty-day supervised rehabilitation provides better therapeutic effects than unsupervised one in treatment of muscle dysfunctions in patients with myofascial pain syndrome, degenerative changes and disk-root conflict at cervical spine.