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Objective: To explore the therapeutic effect of Neurac training on patients with cervical radiculopathy (CR)., Methods: Sixty patients with CR were enrolled and randomly assigned into control group (CG) and Neurac training group (NG) with 30 patients for each group. The patients in CG group received conventional treatments for 2 weeks, including cervical traction, manual therapy and electrical therapy. The patients in NG group received Neurac training as well as conservative treatments for 2 weeks. The pain level and it impact on daily life were assessed by the numerical pain rating scale (NPRS) and the neck disability index (NDI) before the treatments and at the time of 1 week, 2 weeks after the treatments, respectively., Results: Following the treatment, significant improvements for NPRS and NDI were observed in both the two groups at the end of the first and second week. The improvements for both NPRS and NDI were higher in the NG than those in the CG, with P < 0.05., Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that Neurac training can bring additional therapeutic benefits to conventional treatments for patients with CR.

Objective: To determine the effect of elastic taping on patients with patellofemoral pain and its impact on the onset time of vastusmedialis and vastuslateralis., Methods: Eligible patients were assigned into the treatment and control groups randomly. Patients in the treatment group received a 5-day taping with therapeutic stretch. Patients in the control group were give placebo taping without therapeutic stretch. Ultrasound therapy was applied to all of the participants as a basic treatment. The levels of pain and surface electromyography were evaluated before treatment, after the first taping and on the Gh day (without taping)., Results: Patients in the treatment group experienced immediate improvement in pain and onset time of vastusmedialis and vastuslateralis compared with the controls. On the 6th day (without taping), further improvement was achieved in pain and onset time of vastusmedialis and vastuslateralis in the treatment group compared with the controls (P < 0.05)., Conclusion: Elastic taping can effectively improve pain and onset time of vastusmedialis and vastuslateralis.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of thoracic manipulation (TM) in patients with neck pain (NP). OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of thoracic manipulation (TM) in patients with neck pain (NP). METHODS: Seven electronic databases were searched from their inception through October 2023 by two authors. The methodological quality assessments were performed with the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale. Pain, cervical range of motion (ROM), disability, and quality of life (QOL) were estimated for TM treatment in patients with NP. RESULTS: Eighteen randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with 914 patients were included with a PEDro score of 6.923 ± 3.120. Pooled effect sizes of pain (SMD = - 0.481, 95% CI - 0.653 to - 0.309, P = 0.000), disability (SMD = - 1.435, 95% CI - 2.480 to - 0.390, P = 0.007), QOL-physical component score (PCS) (SMD = 0.658, 95% CI 0.290 to 1.025, P = 0.000), ROM of flexion (SMD = 0.921, 95% CI 0.287 to 1.555, P = 0.000), ROM of extension (SMD = 0.572, 95% CI 0.321 to 0.822, P = 0.000), ROM of left lateral flexion (SMD = 0.593, 95% CI 0.075 to 1.112, P = 0.025) and ROM of left rotation (SMD = 0.230, 95% CI 0.010 to 0.450, P = 0.04) were favored by the TM group. CONCLUSIONS: TM provides short-term effect on relieving neck pain, increasing cervical ROM, and disability in patients with NP without serious side effects. Continuous therapy and distraction therapy are recommended as optimal choice on reducing pain and improving cervical ROM, especially in patients with chronic NP (> 3 months). The TM-induced improvements in the QOL of patients with NP should be verified by more further high-quality RCTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a chronic musculoskeletal disease that can cause joint pain and dysfunction, affecting the quality of life of patients. Nonsurgical treatment is the conventional treatment of KOA, among which physical therapy is widely used because of its simplicity, convenience and effectiveness. The functional biomarker will add to the clinical fidelity and diagnostic accuracy. Therefore, our study chose a more objective evaluation indicator, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), to identify between healthy people and KOA patients, and to detect the pain change before and after treatment of KOA patients. Methods: The study will be conducted in the Rehabilitation Medical Center of West China Hospital of Sichuan University and divided into 2 stages. In the first stage, we will compare and determine the differences in baseline data between healthy volunteers and KOA patients. In the second stage, 72 KOA patients will be randomly divided into two groups: the drug therapy group (DT) and the combination therapy group (CT) for 10 treatments. Outcome measures will be measured at baseline and on the 5th and 10th days after the intervention, including the numerical rating scale (NRS), Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), pain catastrophizing scale (PCS), the association of pain severity with task-state functional connectivity fNIRS and association of pain severity with task-activated fNIRS. Discussion: By analyzing the fNIRS data of healthy volunteers and KOA patients, our study will be determined whether fNIRS can be used as a new indicator to reflect the severity of pain in KOA patients. Subsequently, the same fNIRS data for KOA patients before and after the intervention will be collected to provide an accurate evaluation criterion for the effect of physical therapy on KOA. Trial registration: The study was registered on the Chinese Registry website (registered in ChiCTR.org with the identifiers ChiCTR2200064175 and 29/09/2022). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]