Manual Therapy Versus Manual Therapy and Exercise and Education in Chronic Neck Pain

This scale comprises of a 100-mm horizontal line with pain descriptors marked "no pain" at left side and "the worst pain imagine" at the right side, and is used to measure the pain intensity. It was recorded at the beginning of the physical assessment and the patient was asked what their pain intensity was at the time by marking the VAS with a perpendicular line. This is a valid method to measure the pain level37 and psychometric properties of the VAS have been reported widely. The minimal important difference of the VAS is based on detecting an 8.6 mm (based in previous study for a score < 40mm with a pain onset more than 12 weeks) of difference immediately after treatment.

Pressure pain threshold (PPT) is defined as the amount of pressure where the sense of pressure first changes to pain. A digital algometer (FDX 25, Wagner Instruments, CT, USA), will be used. Pressure pain threshold was assessed over right side of masseter 1 and 2, the temporalis muscle 1 and 2, suboccipital muscle, spinous process of C2, vertebral joint process of C5 y C6, upper trapezius muscle (midway between C7 and acromion), epicondyle, scaphoid bone and tibialis anterior muscle (upper one-third of the muscle belly) by an assessor blinded to the subject's condition.

Cervical spine mobility was measured with Cervical Range of Motion (CROM) device (Performance Attainment Associates, MN). The CROM is an instrument that assesses the active range of motion of the cervical segment. It´s a reliable method of measuring, providing a range of intra-meter reliability from 0.7 to 0.9 and a range of inter-meter reliability from 0.8 to 0.87. The patients were measured while sitting with the back against a chair. The goniometer placed over his head, is asked to perform analytical neck movements (flexion, extension, right lateral flexion, left lateral flexion, right rotation and left rotation).

It is a well-validated 10-item questionnaire. The Neck Disability Index (NDI) has sufficient support in the literature, to be the most commonly used to report neck pain. It was used a spanish validation of the index. Scores of <4 indicate no disability, 5-14 mild disability, 15-25 moderate disability, 25-34 severe disability and >35 complete disability

The Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia, developed by Miller was used to assess fear of movement and injury. We used a 11-items version.

To evaluate the subject's propensity to catastrophize about pain we used the Spanish version of Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS). This scale is a 13-item questionnaire designed to measure the three components of catastrophizing: rumination, magnification and helplessness, resulting this evaluation in a unique score.

The FABQ assesses patient beliefs with regard to the effect of physical activity and work on their pain. It consists of 16 items and patients rate their agreement with each statement on a 7- point Likert scale (0 = completely disagree, 6 = completely agree).