Efficacy of high intensity laser therapy in the treatment of chronic neck pain: a randomized double blind placebo control trial
The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of high intensity laser therapy (HILT) in treatment of patients with chronic neck pain (CNP) on cervical range of motion (ROM) pain, and functional activity. Sixty male patients participated in this study with mean (SD) age of 35.47 (4.18) years. Patients were randomly assigned into two groups and treated with HILT plus exercise (HILT EX) and placebo laser plus exercise (PL EX) in groups 1 and 2, respectively. The outcomes measured were cervical ROM, pain level by visual analog scale (VAS) and functional activity by neck disability index (NDI) score. Statistical analyses were performed to compare the differences between baseline and post treatment. The level of statistical significance was set as p 0.05. Cervical ROM significantly increased after 6 weeks of treatment in all groups. VAS and NDI results showed significant decrease post treatment in both groups. HILT EX effectively increased cervical ROM and decreased VAS and NDI scores after 6 weeks of treatment compared to PL EX. HILT EX is an effective physical therapy modality for patients with CNP compared to PL EX therapy. The combination of HILT EX effectively increased cervical ROM, functional activity, and reduced pain after 6 weeks of treatment.
Lasers in Medical Science