Cervical range of motion and strength in 4,293 young male adults with chronic neck pain

Purpose

The correlation of cervical biomechanics and neck pain in young patients has, to date, only been described in terms of small cohorts. This study focuses on the correlation of chronic neck pain and cervical biomechanics.

Methods

Neck pain, cervical range of motion (CROM) and maximal cervical torque were recorded in 746 patients with conservatively treated chronic neck pain and 3,547 participants of physiotherapy training without chronic neck pain aged 16–32 years.

Results

The “neck pain” group had a highly significant (s < 0.001) higher neck disability index (44.7 vs. 10.4 %), longer history of neck pain (3.47 vs. 0.59 years), higher pain intensity (VAS 5.93 vs. 0.93), higher pain frequency (VAS 6.98 vs. 1.09). No differences of CROM and maximal torque in the sagittal, frontal and transverse plane were found.

Conclusion

This study describes the largest cohort of biomechanical data of the cervical spine in young adult recorded to date. The findings demonstrate that no correlation was found between neck pain, CROM and maximal torque in the study cohort. On this basis, we conclude that the CROM and maximal cervical torque should not be used as indicators to measure the progress of chronic neck pain in physiotherapy training and sports medicine for the young adult.