EFFECTIVENESS OF NEURAL MOBILIZATION AND STRETCHING EXERCISE FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF SCIATICA

OBJECTIVE To find out the effectiveness of neural mobilization and stretching exercise for the management of sciatica BACKGROUND Sciatica is described as pain, radiating to the leg below the knee joint and caused by irritation of the sciatic nerve or nerve trunk. There are many treatment options for the management of sciatica, including stretching exercise and neural mobilization. MATERIAL AND METHODS This study was a Randomized Controlled Trial. 94 patients from physical therapy OPD of tertiary care hospitals, were participated in this study. Hence, 47 patients were randomly allocated into each group A and B. Before and after the nine treatment sessions, both groups were assessed with VAS, SLR ROM and Quebec back pain disability scale. In group A, neural mobilization with conventional therapy (heat and TENS) was applied, while stretching exercise with same conventional therapy was applied to group B. RESULTS It was observed that both treatments were helpful in reducing the symptoms. The analysis showed significant improvement (p-value <0.05) in the SLR to 60.851o±6.86oand Quebec score to 23.617±3.125, after the stretching exercise. Hence, both treatments were equally effective in reducing pain (p-value >0.05). CONCLUSION Stretching exercise is more effective in the improvement of SLR and disability. Furthermore, both techniques are helpful in the management of pain.