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- Title
Novel Noxipoint Therapy versus Conventional Physical Therapy for Chronic Neck and Shoulder Pain: Multicentre Randomised Controlled Trials.
- Authors
Koo, Charles C.; Lin, Ray S.; Wang, Tyng-Guey; Tsauo, Jau-Yih; Yang, Pan-Chyr; Yen, Chen-Tung; Biswal, Sandip
- Abstract
As chronic pain affects 115 million people and costs $600B annually in the US alone, effective noninvasive nonpharmacological remedies are desirable. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy and the generalisability of Noxipoint therapy (NT), a novel electrotherapy characterised by site-specific stimulation, intensity-and-submodality-specific settings and a immobilization period, for chronic neck and shoulder pain. Ninety-seven heavily pretreated severe chronic neck/shoulder pain patients were recruited; 34 and 44 patients were randomly allocated to different treatment arms in two patient-and-assessor-blinded, randomised controlled studies. The participants received NT or conventional physical therapy including transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (PT-TENS) for three to six 90-minute sessions. In Study One, NT improved chronic pain (−89.6%, Brief Pain Inventory, p < 0.0001, 95% confidence interval), function (+77.4%, range of motion) and quality of life (+88.1%) at follow-up (from 4 weeks to 5 months), whereas PT-TENS resulted in no significant changes in these parameters. Study Two demonstrated similar advantages of NT over PT-TENS and the generalisability of NT. NT-like treatments in a randomised rat study showed a similar reduction in chronic hypersensitivity (−81%, p < 0.01) compared with sham treatments. NT substantially reduces chronic neck and shoulder pain, restores function, and improves quality of life in a sustained manner.
- Subjects
NECK pain treatment; SHOULDER pain treatment; RANDOMIZED controlled trials; CHRONIC pain treatment; ELECTROTHERAPEUTICS
- Publication
Scientific Reports, 2015, p16342
- ISSN
2045-2322
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1038/srep16342