Chronic Mechanical Neck Pain in Adults Treated by Manual Therapy: A Systematic Review of Change Scores in Randomized Controlled Trials of a Single Session

Neck pain is a very common prob-lem, second only to low back pain in its frequency in the general pop-ulation1-4 and in musculoskeletal prac-tice5. Approximately 15 % of females and 10 % of males suffer with chronic neck pain at any one time6-8. Chronic neck pain produces a high level of morbidity by affecting occupational and avocational activities of daily living and by affecting quality of life9-12. Manual therapies are commonly used in the treatment of chronic neck pain, and there are numerous systematic reviews of the treatment of neck pain by manual therapy13-39. In a recent report40, we reviewed all studies of manual thera