A Comparison of the Effects of Stochastic Resonance Therapy, Whole-Body Vibration and Balance Training on Pain Perception and Sensorimotor Function in Patients with Chronic Non-Specific Neck Pain: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

Neck pain is a prevalent pathological condition and together with low back pain, present as the leading cause of years lived with disability worldwide in 2015 and continue to contribute substantially to global burden of disease. The current study will investigate and compare the effects of stochastic resonance therapy (SRT), whole-body vibration (WBV) and balance training (BLT) in the management of chronic non-specific neck pain. Forty-five (45) Participants with chronic neck pain will be randomly allocated into; SRT, WBV or BLT group. Pain intensity, pressure pain threshold, neck disability and cervical joints position sense will be measured at pre-intervention, immediately and 15 minutes after the first intervention session and after 4 weeks of intervention. A follow-up post intervention measurement would be taken after 4 weeks. The SRT group will train on an SRT device (SRT Zeptor® Medical plus noise, Zeptoring, Berlin, Deutschland). WBV group will train on a Galileo vibration device® (Novotec Medical, Germany), while the BLT group will perform balance exercises. All participants shall train three times a week for a period of 4 weeks. Mixed ANOVA will be used to determine the main and interaction effects of within (pre-intervention, post-intervention 1, post-intervention 2, follow-up) and between (SRT, WBV, BLT) factors on the study outcome variables. Recruitment of participants started in May 2021, and as of May 2022 twenty (20) patients have been enrolled in the study. All participants are expected to have completed the trial by end of 2022 and data analysis will commence thereafter. The outcome of this study will shed closer light on the effects of SRT, WBV and BLT on pain and function in patients with chronic neck pain. German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS) DRKS00023881; https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00023881.