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The Effects of Spinal Manipulation on Performance on Neck Pain Patients During a Fitts' Task

Not Applicable
Completed
Conditions
Chronic Neck Pain
Interventions
Other: High velocity/low amplitude cervical spine manipulation
Registration Number
NCT04347551
Lead Sponsor
University of Manitoba
Brief Summary

The objective of this study is to quantify motor performance, this study will use an eye movement Fitts' task to examine the effects of cervical spine manipulation on participants with chronic neck pain and the subsequent changes to saccade movement time. This study will also include a head movement Fitts' task which has previously reported a reduction in head movement time in chronic neck pain participants after cervical spine manipulation.

This is an observational within-subjects design that involves a pre/post cervical spine manipulation intervention on participants (n=20) with chronic neck pain and asymptomatic controls (n=20). All participants will complete an eye movement and head movement Fitts' task before and after cervical spine manipulation to identify any changes in saccade and head movement time, saccade and head peak velocity, and time to peak saccade and head velocity.

Detailed Description

The purpose of this study is to measure the effects of cervical spine manipulation on the motor performance of participants with and without chronic neck pain.

The objective of this pre/post design study is to apply spinal manipulation of the cervical spine to participants with chronic neck pain and participants who are asymptomatic for neck pain, and to measure the subsequent changes of movement time of the eyes during an eye movement Fitts' task using eye-tracker technology.

This study will also include a head movement Fitts' task, which has been previously shown to identify a reduction in head movement time in participants after receiving cervical spine manipulation. The head movement task, which has a biomechanical basis, will serve as a comparator to the eye movement task, which has a neurophysiologic basis. Changes in head and eye movement time are both measures of motor performance.

The hypothesis for the eye movement Fitts' task, is that the eye movement time will be increase with larger distances between targets and will not be affected by changes in target width. It is anticipated that the eye movement time will reduce in the neck pain group following spinal manipulation in comparison to the asymptomatic group. We hypothesize that during the head movement task, symptomatic participants will experience a decrease in head movement time as compared to the asymptomatic group after spinal manipulation. We further hypothesize that head movement time will be increase with larger target distances and smaller target widths.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
COMPLETED
Sex
All
Target Recruitment
40
Inclusion Criteria

Not provided

Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

Study & Design

Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Study Design
PARALLEL
Arm && Interventions
GroupInterventionDescription
Eye movement Fitts' taskHigh velocity/low amplitude cervical spine manipulationHigh velocity/low amplitude cervical spine manipulation applied to chronic neck pain and asymptomatic participants.
Head movement Fitts' taskHigh velocity/low amplitude cervical spine manipulationHigh velocity/low amplitude cervical spine manipulation applied to chronic neck pain and asymptomatic participants.
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Change in eye (saccade) movement timeChange from baseline saccade movement time immediately following cervical spine manipulation.

Eye (saccade) movement time (milliseconds), which is the time between saccade onset and offset while moving from central circle to the target.

Change in head movement timeChange from baseline head movement time immediately following cervical spine manipulation.

Head movement time (milliseconds) is the time required to move the cursor from the central circle to the target.

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Change in time to peak saccade velocityChange from baseline time to peak velocity immediately following cervical spine manipulation.

Measured as the time (milliseconds) from the onset of velocity to its peak amplitude

Change in time to peak head velocityChange from baseline time to peak head velocity immediately following cervical spine manipulation.

The time (milliseconds) to peak velocity will be measured as the time from the onset of velocity to its peak amplitude.

Change in saccade peak velocityChange from baseline saccade peak velocity immediately following cervical spine manipulation.

Peak of the velocity amplitude (meters/second) in the horizontal movement direction

Change in head peak velocityChange from baseline head peak velocity immediately following cervical spine manipulation.

Measured as the peak of the velocity amplitude (meters/second) of the cursor moving in the horizontal plane

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Gelley Chiropractic Office

🇨🇦

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

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