• Spine · Oct 2004

    Comparative Study

    Patients with neck pain demonstrate reduced electromyographic activity of the deep cervical flexor muscles during performance of the craniocervical flexion test.

    • Deborah L Falla, Gwendolen A Jull, and Paul W Hodges.
    • Division of Physiotherapy, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. d.falla@shrs.uq.edu.au
    • Spine. 2004 Oct 1; 29 (19): 2108-14.

    Study DesignCross-sectional study.ObjectiveThe present study compared activity of deep and superficial cervical flexor muscles and craniocervical flexion range of motion during a test of craniocervical flexion between 10 patients with chronic neck pain and 10 controls.Summary Of Background DataIndividuals with chronic neck pain exhibit reduced performance on a test of craniocervical flexion, and training of this maneuver is effective in management of neck complaints. Although this test is hypothesized to reflect dysfunction of the deep cervical flexor muscles, this has not been tested.MethodsDeep cervical flexor electromyographic activity was recorded with custom electrodes inserted via the nose and fixed by suction to the posterior mucosa of the oropharynx. Surface electrodes were placed over the superficial neck muscles (sternocleidomastoid and anterior scalene). Root mean square electromyographic amplitude and craniocervical flexion range of motion was measured during five incremental levels of craniocervical flexion in supine.ResultsThere was a strong linear relation between the electromyographic amplitude of the deep cervical flexor muscles and the incremental stages of the craniocervical flexion test for control and individuals with neck pain (P = 0.002). However, the amplitude of deep cervical flexor electromyographic activity was less for the group with neck pain than controls, and this difference was significant for the higher increments of the task (P < 0.05). Although not significant, there was a strong trend for greater sternocleidomastoid and anterior scalene electromyographic activity for the group with neck pain.ConclusionsThese data confirm that reduced performance of the craniocervical flexion test is associated with dysfunction of the deep cervical flexor muscles and support the validity of this test for patients with neck pain.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…