The Effect of Eight-Week Corrective Exercises Carried out in Water on Pain, Neck Flexors Endurance and Upper Extremity Range of Motion in Patient with Upper Crossed Syndrome

Introduction: Lifestyle and the constant use of communication technologies have led to the upper crossed syndrome. The purpose of this study was to investigate of the effect of comprehensive corrective exercises carried out in water on pain, neck flexors muscles endurance and neck and upper extremity Range of Motion (ROM) in the patients with upper crossed syndrome (UCS). Methods: In this semi-experimental study, after initial screening, 30 students with upper crossed syndrome were selected and assigned randomly into experimental (n=14) and control (n=16) groups. Before and after the intervention, measurements performed to measure the level of pain by VAS scale, neck and shoulder ROM by inclinometer and neck flexors endurance by deep neck flexors endurance test. To analyze the data, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL; version 18 software was used. The significance level was 0.05. Paired sample t-test was used to compare the mean of the pretest to posttest and independent t-test was used to compare the differences between groups. Results: The experimental group had significant improvement for endurance of neck flexors (P< 0.0001), neck ROM (P< 0.0001), shoulder ROM (P< 0.0001) and neck pain (P< 0.0001). Moreover, the results showed that there were significant differences for endurance of neck flexors (P< 0.0001), neck ROM (P< 0.0001), shoulder ROM (P< 0.0001), and neck pain (P< 0.0001) between groups. Conclusion: According to the results, we can say using water-based corrective exercises could have additional effect on increasing muscles endurance, upper extremity ROM and pain reduction in the patients with upper crossed syndrome, and could be as an effective method for the specialist.