The effectiveness of traditional physiotherapy and High-Tone therapy vs. routine physiotherapy alone on pain, cervical ROM, disability level and quality of life in chronic non-specific neck pain subjects with trigger point in upper trapezius muscle

The effectiveness of routine physiotherapy and High-Tone therapy vs. traditional physiotherapy alone on pain, cervical ROM, disability level and quality of life in chronic non-specific neck pain subjects with trigger point in upper trapezius muscle

The study has control group and is a randomized clinical trial, parallel and one-way blind.

Information questionnaire is completed by the patient and asked to determine the severity of neck pain based on the VAS, followed by the neck disability index questionnaire, neck pain and disability scale questionnaire and the SF-36 quality of life questionnaire. After initial assessments, individuals are treated for four weeks and re-evaluated four weeks after the last treatment session.

Inclusion criteria: 1- People with chronic non-specific neck pain with or without referral to the upper limb without known cause that the pain lasts more than 3 months and has active trigger points in the upper trapezius muscle 2- Age 20-50 years 3- Ability to read and write in Persian Exclusion criteria: 1- Presence of neck pain symptoms of known origin 2- History of migraine 3- Peripheral nerve involvement 4- Fracture of the spine 5- Tumor in the spine 6- Musculoskeletal disorders of the shoulder area 7- Rheumatoid inflammatory diseases 8- Pregnancy 9-Receiving any kind of physiotherapy treatment 10-People are reluctant to participate 11-Simultaneous pain in other areas of the spine 12-Destructive changes 13-History of WIPLASH injury 14-History of shoulder and neck surgery 15-Fibromyalgia 16-Postural kyphosis or any Another posture

Patients are divided into two groups: routine physiotherapy and hightone therapy (experimental group) or routine physiotherapy alone (control group).

Pain, range of motion of the neck, level of disability and quality of life

Patients with nonspecific chronic neck pain are randomly divided into two groups: routine physiotherapy and high-tone therapy (group A) and routine physiotherapy group alone (B) with a ratio of 1:1. Random allocation will be done by the method of balanced (permuted) block randomization, which consists of 4-letter blocks and are made of letters A and B. Then, the treatment allocation list obtained in letters A and B is placed inside the numbered envelopes. The letter A stands for routine physiotherapy and high-tone therapy, and the letter B denotes routine physiotherapy alone. The random assignment process is performed by someone outside the research team before the study begins. Block randomization tool will be done by Random allocation software. After the initial evaluation of the patient by the examiner, the envelopes will be numbered according to the number of each person entered in the study. Finally, after each patient enters the treatment sessions, the intervention provider adjusts the treatment interventions based on the letters in the envelope.

The assessor will be completely unaware of the letters inside the envelopes at the random assignment stage. It should also be noted that after placing patients in the desired group, they are asked not to provide their grouping information to the assessor. All assessments will be performed by a physiotherapist. This person does not know the grouping of patients with chronic non-specific neck pain. In other words, at the time of the final evaluation of the patients, the assessor is not able to determine what type of treatment each patient has received. Therapeutic interventions will be performed by another physiotherapist.

Deidentified individual participant data collected for the primary and secondary outcome measures will be shared if necessary

Starting 6 months after publication

The data will be available for physical therapists working in academic institutions and also clinicians working in the field of musculoskeletal disorders

The raw data and results of this study can be used in future relevant systematic reviews. Thus, the raw data and results of this study will be available for researchers working in the field of hightone current and trigger points of upper trapzius muscle.

Applicants can contact the researcher of this study Zamane bonyatpour by email. Email address: zamane94@gmail.com

Applicants should explain in detail about their project and how the data/documents of this study will be used in their project. Then, the data/documents files will be sent by email to applicants on request. This process may takes 10-12 working days.