Comparative joint position error in patients with non-specific neck disorders and asymptomatic age-matched individuals.
Jonathan Quartey, Markus Ernst, Ajediran Bello and 8 others
PMID 31309165WHAT IT FOUND
Neck position sense did not separate 20 people with mild neck pain from 20 matched controls.
Controls usually made larger errors, and the paper reported extension differences close to 1 and 2 degrees.
Key findings
01The study concluded there were no differences in cervical joint position error between patients with mild neck pain and asymptomatic controls.
02Controls showed larger error values for most absolute, constant and variable measures, while differences for left and right rotation were small.
03Averaging two trials was enough to reach high reliability, but variation above 10% meant the test was not suitable for measuring change over time.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The sample was small, with 40 participants, and the study compared groups at one time rather than following them. Investigators were not blinded to whether participants had neck pain, which could bias marking or interpretation. The neck pain group had only mild disability, with mean Neck Disability Index 6.45 points, so results may not apply to severe neck pain. The method required manually marking each repositioned head position and measuring it with a ruler, so recording inaccuracies could occur. Day-to-day variation exceeded 10%, so the test is not suitable for measuring change over time.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that neck position sense testing can diagnose neck pain or track recovery. The groups did not differ overall, controls often had larger errors, and the measurement variation was too high for tracking change over time.