Neck Pain Rehabilitation

Abstract

According to the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), Neck pain is defned as a pain that comes from an area between the nuchal line and another imaginary line passing through the lower end of the spinous process of frst thoracic vertebra and sagittal plans tangent to the side edges of the neck. Indeed, Neck pain is the most common disorders of the musculoskeletal system, second only to low back pain. It constitutes 40% of all backache and is the fourth cause of disability, with an annual incidence of 83 per 100,000 individuals, aged between 13 and 91 years, in the US [1]. This pain may also radiate to the upper limbs if there is a nerve root compression, the distribution depends on the affected nerve root. The painful perception depends mainly on the nociceptive elicitation of the major structures innervated in the neck region, such as cervical muscles, ligaments, facet joints, and nerve roots. The IASP’s defnition considers posterior pain, which can be divided into high pain, up to C3, and lower pain, down from C4, and, merely according to the time of onset, it can be divided into acute (lasts less than 3 months) and chronic (lasts longer). In 50% of cases, neck pain resolves spontaneously or with pharmacological and physiotherapy treatment, however the remaining 50% will have recurrent or chronic neck pain