Subjects with chronic nonspecific neck pain were randomly assigned to 12 weeks of group Tai Chi or conventional neck exercises, and they attended 12 weekly sessions of 60 to 90 minutes. The interventions included exercises to improve body awareness, that is, interoceptive and postural awareness. A linear forward stepwise regression analysis was conducted to examine associations with improvements in neck pain intensity. Potential predictor variables included baseline pain, age, sex, the type of intervention, attendance rate and home practice duration, and changes in psychological well-being, perceived stress, and postural and interoceptive awareness during the study.
Overall 75 patients were randomized into Tai Chi or conventional exercises, with the majority being women (78.7%). Participants reported an average pain intensity of 50.7 ± 20.4 mm visual analog scale at baseline, and the average reduction of pain intensity in both groups was 21.4 ± 21.3 mm visual analog scale. Regression analysis revealed that reductions in pain intensity from baseline to 12 weeks were predicted by higher pain intensity at baseline (r = 0.226, P < 0.001), a decrease in anxiety (r = 0.102, P = 0.001), and an increase in postural awareness (r = 0.078, P = 0.0033), explaining a total of 40.6% of variance.
Lauche, Romy, et al. “Does Postural Awareness Contribute to Exercise-Induced Improvements in Neck Pain Intensity? A Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial Evaluating Tai Chi and Neck Exercises.” Spine, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 15 Aug. 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28146026.
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