Comparison of efficacy of instrumented clinical pilates exercises and manual therapy practices in women with chronic neck pain: A randomized controlled single-blind study

Aim: The aim of this study to compare the effectiveness of equipment-based clinical pilates exercises (EBCPE) and manual therapy practises (MTP) in women with chronic neck pain. Materials and Methods: 40 women with chronic neck pain were randomly divided into EBCPE (n=20) and MTP (n=20) groups. Both groups received treatment for for 12 sessions. Participants' age, weight, height, body mass index, occupationa, marital status, neck pain duration, neck pain with Visual Analog Scale (VAS), neck disability level with Neck Disability Index, Cervical Range of Motion device (CROM) cervical joint range of motion (ROM), cervical joint position sense absolute error (JPS) with CROM, head-neck posture with craniovertebral angle (CVA) and cervicothoracic angle (CTA), neck awareness level with Fremantle Neck Awareness Questionnaire (FreNAQ), psychological symptoms with Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADQ) were assessed. Clinical data assessments were repeated twice, before and after treatment. Results: Socio-demographic data of EBCPE and MTP groups were similar. In the comparison of pre- and post-treatment assessments in the EBCPE group, a significant improvement was found in all parameters except left lateral flexion ROM and neck awareness level neglect subsection (p>0,999) after treatment. In the comparison of pre- and post-treatment assessments in the MTP group, a significant improvement was found in all parameters except the neck awareness level neglect subsection (p>0,999) after treatment. In comparison of the difference values of the EBCPE and MTP groups before and after treatment, a statistical greater improvement was found favor of the MTP group in parameters of cervical extension ROM, right rotation JPS, awareness level parameters (p<0.05); in neck disability level, CVA and KVA parameters significant improvement was found in favor of the EBCPE group (p<0.05). Conclusion: The results of this study showed that MTU may be more effective in awareness; EBCPE may be more effective in disability and posture.