EVALUATING THE IMPACT OF DEEP NECK FLEXOR EXERCISES ON PAIN, MOBILITY, AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN MECHANICAL NECK PAIN PATIENTS

It has been reported that neck discomfort is a common disturbance of people’s wellbeing and parameter of life that are health-related especially in their productive life. The study assessed the effectiveness of exercising neck’s deep flexor muscles (NDFM) on discomfort, movement and health-related life parameters in patients that have mechanical neck discomfort Twenty individuals ascertained with discomfort at the neck of mechanical origin were studied. Deep neck flexor exercises (Switching on deep neck flexor muscles; side neck muscles; back neck muscles and front neck muscles) were administered sequentially for 5-10 seconds each for a session and each session was repeated 10 times thrice in a week for six weeks. Pain, neck movement and parameters of life that are health-related were measured before treatment, week 3 and in week 6. Information gathered were scrutinized using descriptive and inferential statistics with level of significance to be 0.05. The outcome indicated an important decline when before-treatment, third week and sixth week of NDFM exercise were compared on pain intensity (F=30.349, P=.000), Neck disability index (F=6.596, P=.005) and HRQoL (F=6.678, P=.005). It was also revealed that there was significant increase among pretreatment, third week and sixth week of cervical range of motion for flexion (F=11.630, P=.000), right side flexion (F=6.490, P=.000), and right rotation (F=7.280, P=0.000). Considering the result from the research, it can be said that administration of DNFE has positive effect in treatment of mechanical or pain at the neck of no organic origin with respect to discomfort, disability, movement and parameter of health related to life