Abstract
BackgroundNon-specific neck pain is a common health problem of global concern for office workers. This systematic review ascertained the latest evidence for the effectiveness of therapeutic exercise versus no therapeutic exercise on reducing neck pain and improving quality of life (QoL) in office workers with non-specific neck pain.MethodSeven electronic databases using keywords, that is, ‘office workers’, ‘non-specific neck pain’, ‘exercise’ and/or ‘exercise therapy’, ‘QoL’, ‘strengthening’, ‘stretching’, ‘endurance’, ‘physiotherapy’ and/or ‘physical therapy’, were searched from inception until March 2017. Heterogeneous data were reported in narrative format and comparable homogenous data were pooled using Revman.ResultsEight randomised control trials were reviewed and scored on average 6.63/10 on the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale. Five studies performed strengthening exercise, one study had a strengthening and an endurance exercise group, one study performed stretching exercise and one study had an endurance intervention group and a stretching intervention group. Five and four studies reported significant improvement in neck pain and QoL, respectively, when conducting strengthening exercise. When performing endurance exercises, one and two studies reported significant changes in neck pain and QoL, respectively. The one study incorporating stretching exercise reported significant improvement in neck pain. The meta-analysis revealed that there is a clinically significant difference favouring strengthening exercise over no exercise in pain reduction but not for QoL.ConclusionThere is level II evidence recommending that clinicians include strengthening exercise to improve neck pain and QoL. However, the effect of endurance and stretching exercise needs to be explored further.
Highlights
Non-specific neck pain is a common health problem of global concern especially in office workers (Hanvold et al 2014)
Four full text articles were not eligible and excluded
This review sought to determine the effectiveness of therapeutic exercise on pain and quality of life (QoL) in office workers with non-specific neck pain compared to no therapeutic exercise
Summary
Non-specific neck pain is a common health problem of global concern especially in office workers (Hanvold et al 2014). Work-related musculoskeletal pain has a high prevalence rate of self-reported non-specific neck pain in both developed and developing countries (Cagnie et al 2007). In Australia, a one-year incidence rate of 49% was recorded for neck pain in office workers (Hush et al 2009). In developing countries, such as India, Shah and Patel (2015) reported a 47% prevalence rate for office-related neck pain. The above evidence indicates that non-specific neck pain in office workers could be of concern over multiple continents. Non-specific neck pain is a common health problem of global concern for office workers. This systematic review ascertained the latest evidence for the effectiveness of therapeutic exercise versus no therapeutic exercise on reducing neck pain and improving quality of life (QoL) in office workers with non-specific neck pain
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