Investigation of neck muscle endurance and its physical performance on medical faculty students

This study was performed on a young population of medical faculty students in order to determine the relationships among cervical deep flexor muscle endurance and pain, range of motion, cervical physical performance, functional level and way of life. Subjects with ages between 18-22, 81 females (%43,8) and 104 males (%56,2) were included in this study. Cervical deep flexor endurance was evaluated by clinic endurance test, cervical range of motion and head posture measurement were evaluated by CROM device and cervical physical performance was evaluated by cervical PILE test. Additionally, Visual Analog Scale (VAS) with pain level and Neck Disability Index with functional degree were evaluated. In this evaluation, way of lives were surveyed by questions related to the time spent on desk and physical activity level.Endurance time, posture measurements, range of motions, disability score averages were found to be significantly different at females and males (p<0,05). Endurance time was found to be significantly lower (p<0,05) on the group suffering from pain and disability. As the time spent on desk increased, decrease of endurance time (p<0,05) was observed with females. As the activity level increased with both females and males, endurance time and cervical physical performance components increased, however weak level of corelation was found between endurance time and range of motion. It was also determined that cervical physical performance was negatively correlated to the activity level with females and males. On the other hand, the anthropometric measurements showed a weak corelation between cervical physical performance and endurance.In conclusion, it was determined that cervical deep flexor muscle endurance was related to pain, functional level, range of motion, cervical physical performance and way of life. It is expected that this study will help improve young population performance and exercise program studies.Key words: Cervical deep flexor muscle endurance, PILE test, CROM device, Neck Disability Index, VAS.