Abstract
Objective
To determine the effect of clinical presentations of neck pain on short-term physical
therapy outcomes.
Design
Retrospective analysis of pair-matched groups from a clinical cohort.
Setting
Thirteen outpatient physical therapy clinics in 1 health care system.
Participants
Patients (N=1069) grouped by common clinical presentations of neck pain: nonspecific
neck pain (NSNP) with duration <4 weeks; NSNP with duration >4 weeks; neck pain with
arm pain; neck pain with headache; and neck pain from whiplash.
Intervention
Conservative interventions provided by physical therapists.
Main Outcome Measures
Neck Disability Index (NDI) and numerical pain rating scale (NPRS) recorded at the
initial and last visits. The main outcome of interest was achieving recovery status
on the NDI. Changes in NDI and NPRS were compared between clinical presentation groups.
Results
Compared with patients presenting with NSNP >4 weeks, patients with NSNP <4 weeks
had increased odds of achieving recovery status on the NDI (P<.0001) and demonstrated the greatest changes in clinical outcomes of pain (P≤.0001) and disability (P≤.0001). Patients with neck pain and arm pain demonstrated an increased odds of achieving
recovery status on the NDI (P=.04) compared with patients presenting with NSNP >4 weeks.
Conclusions
Treating patients with NSNP within <4 weeks of onset of symptoms may lead to improved
clinical outcomes from physical therapy compared with other common clinical presentations.
Keywords
List of abbreviations:
CI (confidence interval), CPT (Current Procedural Terminology), DOT (duration of treatment), NDI (Neck Disability Index), NSNP (nonspecific neck pain), NPRS (numerical pain rating scale)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 09, 2015
Footnotes
Disclosures: none.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
