Fusion of Spine, Cervical Region clinical trials

Comparison of Outcomes Between Early Physical Therapy Intervention and Usual Care Following Anterior Cervical Fusion Surgery

Background: Early physical therapy (PT) intervention with emphasis on spinal stabilization has been shown to benefit individuals undergoing lumbar spinal surgery. Further, training cervical spine stabilizers (deep cervical flexors and cervical multifidus) has been shown to be effective in reducing neck pain, restoring cervical spinal function and mobility in many types of cervical spine dysfunction. However, the training of stabilizers has not been studied in individuals undergoing cervical spinal surgery, even though these individuals often have problems with residual pain and weakness after the surgery. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of clinical outcomes between an early PT intervention and usual care in patients who have undergone anterior cervical spine fusion (ACF) surgery. A study hypothesis is that outcomes will be improved with early PT intervention. Methods: This study is a double-blinded randomized clinical trial with a two-factor (2x3) research design. The patients following ACF surgery will be randomly assigned in one of the two treatment groups: usual care and early intervention. Three outcome measures will be collected pre-operative for baseline, and then at 6-week and 12-week post-operative follow-up visits, including: (1) deep cervical flexor (DCF) strength as determined by the cranio-cervical flexion (CCF) performance test, (2) patient's perceived disability associated neck pain as determined by the Neck Disability Index (NDI) questionnaire, and (3) neck pain level using the numeric pain rating scale (NPRS). In addition, at 6 and 12 weeks, the global rate of change (GROC) scale will be obtained to determine the patient's perception of overall improvement as a result of surgery. The investigator performing the outcome measures will be blinded to group assignment, and therefore will not participate in treatment. After randomization, the usual care group will receive only one visit of PT for post-operative instruction. The early intervention group will receive verbal and written instructions for posture and training cervical spine stabilizers in addition to the usual care. The early intervention group also will be asked to perform these exercises at home and keep a log of the exercise. Data Analysis: Two 2x3 MANOVAs with repeated measures will be used to examine the differences in the CCF strength and the NDI scores between groups and at the three different time frames with the α level set at 0.05. Non-parametric tests (Mann-Whitney U tests) will be used to compare the differences in the NPRS and GROC data over time and between groups.