• Hayato Shigetoh, Michihiro Osumi, and Shu Morioka.
• Department of Neurorehabilitation, Graduate School of Health Science, Kio University, Nara, Japan.
• Pain Med. 2019 Jul 1; 20 (7): 1347-1354.

BackgroundManual traction is used for pain relief, but it is not clear whether the pain relief effect of manual traction is due to sensitivity or to subjective bias. The differences between manual traction and touch have also been unclear.ObjectivesWe used signal detection theory to investigate whether manual traction and touch were effective for pain relief, and we compared the pain relief effect between manual traction and touch.DesignRepeated measures and single blinding.MethodsTwenty healthy adult volunteers performed an intensity judgment task immediately before and after each intervention. The intervention was either manual traction or touch for 10 minutes. We measured the intensity judgment task's signal detection measures of hit rates, false alarm rates, sensitivity (d'), and response bias (C) in an Aδ fiber-mediated pain condition and C fiber-mediated pain condition.ResultsManual traction did not provide a significant level of change, but its effect sizes differed. In our comparison of the effect sizes, manual traction tended to reduce the hit rate and altered the sensitivity value rather than the response bias in Aδ fiber-mediated pain. There was no significant difference in the amount of change in the hit rate between touch and manual traction regarding Aδ fiber-mediated pain and C fiber-mediated pain.ConclusionsIn terms of effect sizes, manual traction was effective for the pain relief of the first pain by producing a change in pain sensitivity rather than by subjective bias. Manual traction reduced the first pain, whereas touch reduced the first pain and second pain.© 2019 American Academy of Pain Medicine. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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