Effectiveness of Massage of the Thoracic Region in Neck Pain

A Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) is one of the pain rating scales used for measure the intensity pain. The VAS is a straight horizontal line of fixed length, usually 100 mm.The ends are defined as the extreme limits of the parameter to be measured orientated from the left or "10" (worst pain) to the right (best pain) or "0".

This questionnaire has been designed to give us information as to how the neck pain are affecting the subject´s ability to manage in everyday life. The questionnaire has 10 items including pain, personal care, lifting, reading, headaches, concentration, work, driving, sleeping and recreation. It´s interpreted as a raw score, with a maximum score of 50 where "0" is not disability and 50 is the worst disability

Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS). The PCS is a 13-item instrumen that task participants to reflect on past painful experiences, and to indicate the degree to which they experienced each of 13 thoughts or feelings when experiencing pain, on 5-point scales with the end points (0) not at all and (4) all the time. The PCS total scores range from 0 - 52. 0 is the best result and 52 is the worst result.

The Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia (TSK) describe patient circumstances characterised by an "excessive, irrational, and debilitating fear of physical movement and activity resulting from a feeling of vulnerability to painful injury or reinjury. The TSK is a 17 item assessment checklist.The 17 item TSK total scores range from 17 to 68 where the lowest 17 means no or negligible kinesiophobia, and the higher scores indicate an increasing degree of kinesiophobia.

It's a scale that assesses whether the patient condition has gotten worse, better, or stayed the same and to quantify the magnitude of that change, typically following treatment.Subjects will make global ratings of changes regarding their level of well-being from their neck pain since the initial examination on a 15-point self-report scale (from -7 to 7), where -7 is the worst possible value and 7 is the best possible value.