Good Vibrations

Individuals with neck pain and discomfort typically demonstrate difficulty in joint position sense and diminished postural control. This essentially means neck pain sufferers have disturbed neck movements/biomechanics. This can in turn can lead to additional pain, discomfort, arthritis and reduced motion in the neck. A newly conducted study compared the effects of vibration therapy in a group of healthy individuals to those suffering from neck pain. All subjects received short term vibration to the neck muscles at a frequency of 100 Hz. Interestingly, neck pain sufferers experienced an almost opposite effect to the healthy individuals. Those suffering from neck pain experienced an improvement in joint position sense and reduction in dynamic postural sway after vibration therapy. On the other hand, healthy individuals or non neck pain sufferers had a reduction in joint position sense acuity and a nonsignificant increase in postural sway. While the reduced joint position sense in healthy individuals was most likely short term and not harmful, there were clear benefits observed in the neck pain sufferers after receiving vibration therapy.