Effect of Nerve Gliding Exercises and Conventional Treatment in Reducing Wrist Pain among Female Sewing Machine Operators.

Background: The wrist is the most used site in operating the sewing machine. Sewing machine operators work continuously for long period of time. The repetitive movement on the wrist joint can cause pain. The acute wrist pain can affect the daily living activities. Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the effect of nerve gliding exercises and conventional treatment in reducing wrist pain among female sewing machine operators. Study type, settings & duration: The study was randomized controlled trial that was carried out at Government Polytechnic Institute for Women, Dandy School for Fashion Designing and Government Technical Training Institute for Women, Lahore from February to August 2021. Methodology: The study design was Randomized control trial. Total of 66 female participants were randomly taken from different settings. Lottery method sampling technique was used to randomly place the 66 participants into two groups: group A (nerve gliding exercises) as treatment group and group B (TENS for conventional treatment) as control group. The treatment was given for 4 weeks. The TENS was applied for 25-30 mins with the frequency of 80-120Hz. Patient Related Wrist Evaluation questionnaire was used. The independent t-test and paired sample t-test was used for statistical analysis. Results: The group A (nerve gliding exercises) has pain relief score 34.14±7.69 whereas group B (conventional treatment) has pain relief score 38.58±10.14. The p-value obtained 0.05 was statistically significant in group A. This p-value shows that the treatment of group A was more effective than group B in reducing wrist pain in female sewing machine operators. Conclusion: This study concluded that nerve gliding exercises was more effective than conventional treatment for the reduction of wrist pain in female sewing machine operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]