Internet-Based Telerehabilitation Versus in-Person Therapeutic Exercises in Young Adult Females With Chronic Neck Pain and Forward Head Posture: Randomized Controlled Trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Neck pain is a common musculoskeletal disorder, often linked to forward head posture (FHP). Studies have shown that exercise interventions can improve pain, craniovertebral angle (CVA), range of motion, and function in individuals with FHP. While telerehabilitation exercise has proven effective for other musculoskeletal conditions, its effectiveness in addressing neck pain and FHP is still being investigated. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of an internet-based telerehabilitation therapeutic exercise program with an in-person supervised program in improving clinical outcomes among young adult females with chronic nonspecific neck pain and FHP. The study hypothesized that there would be no significant differences in outcomes between the 2 groups. Methods: A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 50 participants experiencing chronic neck pain and FHP, recruited through public announcement and voluntary sign-up. Participants were randomly assigned to either a telerehabilitation group or an in-person supervision group. Both groups completed the same 6-week, physiotherapist-supervised therapeutic exercise program, delivered via Zoom (Zoom Video Communications) or in the physiotherapy department laboratory, respectively. Outcome assessments were conducted face-to-face by blinded assessors at baseline, after 4 and 6 weeks of intervention, and at a 2-week follow-up. Outcome measures included pain intensity (assessed using the Visual Analog Scale [VAS]), CVA, neck disability (assessed using the Neck Disability Index [NDI]), and cervical range of motion (CROM). Adherence was monitored using attendance logs. Results: Of the 50 participants, 48 completed the intervention with 1 dropout from each group. Adherence among completers was 100 percent in both groups. All 50 participants were included in the analysis using the intention-to-treat principle. No differences in effectiveness were found between the telerehabilitation and in-person groups, as no significant interaction effect between group and time was observed across all outcome measures including VAS, CVA, NDI, and CROM (P values ranged .07-.61). However, improvements were observed in all outcomes across time, including a 2.2- to 4.1-cm reduction in VAS, 5°-8.8° increase in CVA, 3.3- to 7.1-point reduction in NDI (P<.001 for all), and 3.5°-22.7° increase in CROM (P<.001 to P=.04). Conclusions: Both telerehabilitation and in-person supervision were similarly effective in improving pain, posture, neck disability, and CROM in young adult females with chronic neck pain and FHP. These findings suggest that telerehabilitation may be a feasible and accessible alternative to conventional in-person therapeutic exercise programs for managing chronic neck pain with FHP.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.011 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".