Effects of therapeutic exercise on pain processing in people with chronic non-specific neck pain - A systematic review and meta-analysis.

研究概要

Thirteen randomized controlled trials (RCTs) including 948 patients with chronic non-specific neck pain were included in this systematic review and meta-analysis, comparing therapeutic exercise to non-exercise treatments. The pooled outcomes of interest included local and remote pressure pain threshold (PPT) across different time points (immediate, short-term, and medium-term follow-ups). Results showed that therapeutic exercise was not superior to non-exercise treatments for local and remote PPT in the immediate or short-term follow-ups. However, a small improvement was observed in the medium-term for local PPT. The certainty of evidence was very low. These findings suggest that while exercise may have some benefit in the medium term, the overall impact on pain processing remains uncertain.