Effect of maitland mobilization in cervical and thoracic spine and therapeutic exercise on functional impairment in individuals with chronic neck pain.

Only 18 participants were studied, all from one hospital in Korea, so the result may not apply to other settings or to people with other neck pain causes. People with neurological damage, fracture, osteoporosis, arthritis, cancer, vascular disease, or psychiatric problems were excluded. The intervention lasted only two weeks, and the authors say this was too short to produce mechanical change in muscles. The authors note that the small number of subjects and individual differences may explain why this study found between-group differences when other short-term studies did not. The authors say follow-up research is needed to determine whether the effect persists.

Do not conclude that joint mobilization alone is proven effective for neck pain. This trial compared therapeutic exercise alone with therapeutic exercise plus joint mobilization, so it cannot show what mobilization would do without exercise.