Mechanical effects of traction and massage therapy on cervical spondylopathy

Yizhen ZHANG; Xiaohong WANG; Haoyang XING; Liming ZHANG

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:

Non-operation therapies are commonly used in the treatment of cervical spondylopathy. All of these therapies involve biological mechanics; especially for traction and massage of the cervical vertebrae, they have an obvious property of biological mechanics in rehabilitation of the cervical vertebrae.

OBJECTIVE:

To probe into the biological mechanics of different rehabilitation methods through comparing the intervention effects between traction and traction combined with massage on cervical spondylopathy.

DESIGN:

A case-controlled observation.

SETTING:

Rehabilitation Center of West China Hospital of Sichuan University.

PARTICIPANTS:

Among the patients who came to the Rehabilitation Center of West China Hospital of Sichuan University between October 2002 and July 2003 for the treatment of spondylopathy, totally 52 patientsmet the criteria for non-operation therapy. They participated in the experiment voluntarily and were randomly divided into 2 groups the experimental group and the control group, with 26 patients for each.

METHODS:

①The patients in the experimental group were treated by traction in combination with massage. Traction was performed once a day,30 minutes each time, 5 times as a course of treatment, and one or two courses of treatment in total. Massage was performed for 8 to 10 minutes each time, once a day, 5 times as a course of treatment, and one or two courses in total. ② The patients in the control group were treated with traction only. Cervical Spondylopathy Therapeutic Effect Rating Scale was adopted to evaluate the effects, three items were selected to set as our scoring criterion, which included clinical symptoms, physical examinations and activities of the daily life (ADL). The improvement index was figured out on the basis of the pre-treatment score and post-treatment score. The improvement index is worked out by the following equation improvement index = (The post-treatment score-pre-treatment score) / the post-treatment score. The improvement index was evaluated by physicians after the treat ment. Effectual Clinical symptoms and body symptoms were obviously improved; work, learning, and daily life are not affected. Effective Clinical symptoms and body symptoms have improved , and work, learning, and the daily life are partially affected. In-effective There was no improvement in clinical symptoms and body symptoms and showed no effect on the work ,learning, and the daily life. MAIN OUTCOME

MEASURES:

① Score of the treatment of cervical spondylopathy of the patients before and after the treatment. ② Intervention effect on the patients after the treatment

RESULTS:

Totally 52 patients with cervical spondylopathy entered the stage of result analysis with none missing in the midway. ① Comparison of the scores of the treatment of cervical spondylopathy of the patients before and after the treatment After the treatment, the score in the experimental group was significantly higher than that in the control group [ 16.431 ±3.212,13.147 ±3.036 ( t =4.676, P ＜ 0.01 )], and the improvement index of the patients in the experimental group was significantly higher than that in the control group [0.505±0.163,0.368±0.145 (t=3.860, P ＜ 0.01 )]. ② Comparison of the intervention effects on the patients after the treatment The effectual rate of the experimental group was higher than that of the control group (80.8%,46.2%).

CONCLUSION:

The approach of traction combined with massage is superior to simple traction. Different rehabilitation approaches have different properties in biological mechanics. It has showed that the force change is important to therapeutic effectiveness on cervical spondylopathy.