Efectividad de la técnica de la movilización de la escápula sobre la mecanosensibilidad neural del ULNT 1 en individuos con cervicalgia mecánica

Abstract

Between 45% and 70% of the general population suffers neck pain at some point in their lives, making it one of the most frequent reasons for taking sick leave. Given its importance in physiotherapy at clinical level, we seek to observe how a scapular mobilization technique might influence the neural mechanosensitivity of the median nerve as measured by Upper Limb Neural Test 1 (ULNT1) on subjects with neck pain. Hypotheses and objectives. Performing a scapular mobilization technique on subjects with neck pain and a positive ULNT1 improves the patient's response to said test. It also decreases the patient's neck pain as measured using a Visual Analog Scale (VAS) for pain and increases grip strength. Material and method. A single-blind clinical trial was performed on subjects randomly assigned to either a treatment group or control group. The sample consisted of 60 subjects (N = 60) –30 in the treatment group (n = 30) and the other 30 as a control (n = 30) –and was made up of patients with neck pain and a positive ULNT1. A scapular mobilization was performed on the first group and on the second, a calcaneus abduction adduction on the opposite side from the positive ULNT1 as a placebo. Results. After performing the scapular mobilization on the treatment group, significant improvement was observed in neural mechanosensitivity of the median nerve (ULNT1) (p-value <0.001), as was the strength measured using a manual pressure gauge pre- and post-treatment (p-value = 0.037) and pain levels measured using a VAS pre- and post-treatment (p-value <0.001). Conclusions. Performing a scapular mobilization technique on subjects with neck pain and a positive ULNT1 significantly improves the neural mechanosensitivity of the median nervve, grip strength and pain (VAS).