Effectiveness of exercise in office workers with neck pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

BackgroundNon-specific neck pain is a common health problem of global concern for office workers. This systematic review ascertained the latest evidence for the effectiveness of therapeutic exercise versus no therapeutic exercise on reducing neck pain and improving quality of life (QoL) in office workers with non-specific neck pain.MethodSeven electronic databases using keywords, that is, ‘office workers’, ‘non-specific neck pain’, ‘exercise’ and/or ‘exercise therapy’, ‘QoL’, ‘strengthening’, ‘stretching’, ‘endurance’, ‘physiotherapy’ and/or ‘physical therapy’, were searched from inception until March 2017. Heterogeneous data were reported in narrative format and comparable homogenous data were pooled using Revman.ResultsEight randomised control trials were reviewed and scored on average 6.63/10 on the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale. Five studies performed strengthening exercise, one study had a strengthening and an endurance exercise group, one study performed stretching exercise and one study had an endurance intervention group and a stretching intervention group. Five and four studies reported significant improvement in neck pain and QoL, respectively, when conducting strengthening exercise. When performing endurance exercises, one and two studies reported significant changes in neck pain and QoL, respectively. The one study incorporating stretching exercise reported significant improvement in neck pain. The meta-analysis revealed that there is a clinically significant difference favouring strengthening exercise over no exercise in pain reduction but not for QoL.ConclusionThere is level II evidence recommending that clinicians include strengthening exercise to improve neck pain and QoL. However, the effect of endurance and stretching exercise needs to be explored further.

On-site multi-component intervention to improve productivity and reduce the economic and personal burden of neck pain in Swiss office-workers (NEXpro): protocol for a cluster-randomized controlled trial

“…Likewise, in office-workers exercises may alleviate headache [21]. A systematic review and meta-analysis showed that strengthening exercises should be favoured to endurance and stretching exercise for the treatment of NP in officeworkers [22]. An Australian study examined the impact of neck exercises on workplace productivity in monetary terms specific to office-workers within participating companies [23].…”

Four-year pain relief after coblation combined with active exercise for cervical discogenic pain

“…According to the published literatures a single technique did not yield good clinical results no matter coblation or active exercise for chronic neck pain. [26,27] In this study the patient performed active exercise every day after minimally invasive surgery and got long-term pain relief which gave us clear strategy of clinical treatment for patients with discogenic pain. Passive exercise was usually accepted easily by people when they felt uncomfortable in clinic.…”

Effectiveness and optimal dosage of exercise training for chronic non-specific neck pain: A systematic review with a narrative synthesis

“…Clinical guidelines and systematic reviews provide recommendations based on moderate evidence that "exercise" or "strengthening and endurance" exercise have small to large effects on pain and disability but provide little detail to the type of exercise to be used in clinical practice [4,5,[10][11][12]. The studies cited within these guidelines and systematic reviews describe multiple different exercise training (ET) programmes aimed at improving neuromuscular function or motor capacity of the neck and shoulder musculature.…”