The effectiveness of spinal manipulation compared to passive oscillatory mobilization in the management of chronic mechanical thoracic spine pain

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of spinal manipulation compared to passive oscillatory mobilization in order to evaluate the more effective treatment in the management of chronic mechanical thoracic spine pain. It was hypothesized that spinal manipulation and passive oscillatory mobilization would both be effective in the treatment of chronic mechanical thoracic spine pain. It was further postulated that spinal manipulation would be comparatively more effective than passive oscillatory mobilization in terms of objective and subjective clinical findings. This randomised controlled clinical trial consisted of a study population of 60, obtained by convenience sampling. Those patients diagnosed as suffering from chronic mechanical thoracic spine pain were randomly allocated to two groups of 30 each. One group received spinal manipulation and the other group passive oscillatory mobilization on the affected segments. Both groups of patients received 5 treatments over a two-week period. The subjective data was obtained by the use of the short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire and the Numerical Pain Rating Scale-101 Questionnaire. These were filled in by the patient before the first, third and fifth treatments. The objective data was acquired through the use of the algometer. Readings were taken before and after the first, third and fifth treatments. Intra-group analysis of the short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire was done using the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test. The paired t-test was used for the Numerical Pain Rating Scale -101 Questionnaire and the Algometer Readings (intra-group analysis). Inter-group analysis of the short-form McGill Pain Questionnaire was done using the Mann Whitney unpaired Utest. The unpaired t-test was used for the Numerical Pain Rating Scale-l 0 I Questionnaire and the Algometer Readings (inter-group analysis). a was set at a 0.05 level of significance. The results were illustrated by means of tables and