IDIOPATHIC CERVICAL PAIN- ANALYSING DIFFERENT TREATMENT METHODS

Introduction: Chronic cervical pain constitutes one of major orthopedic ailment that is unpleasant to both patient and surgeon. A study is done to analyse the various modalities being practiced to mask the symptoms complex arising out of it. Methods: The study conducted between May 2019 to December 2019 involve retrospective analysis of 300 patients aged between 30 to 60 years visiting orthopedic OPD since last 2 years and had used some form of treatment modality whether non-operative or operative for chronic neck pain. Patients were divided into 4 groups involving a) Neck muscle strengthening exercises (NMS) b) Pharmacological regime c) Combined muscle strengthening and drug regime (CMD) d) surgical intervention. Results:On analysis of results with 90 patients each in group a, b, c and 30 patients in group d, the patient relief was higher in group c planned for CMD regime followed by group b, group a and group d in decreasing order of response rate. The pain relief was not as good as expected in group d comprising of patients planned for surgical intervention comprising decompression with dissectomy. Conclusion: It is seen that chronic neck pain being one of very common disease complex is very disabling to patient and irritates the surgeon also because of nonrespondness of patient to treatment and complexity of surgical intervention if undertaken. Our study analyses that among the various methods given in literature CMD regime respond best to majority of cases. The regime is cheap, easy to follow and had best response rate as compared to other modalities compared.