Physical Therapy vs. Surgery for Cervical Radiculopathy

6/24/2013

Those of you that are members in the APTA may have noticed a very interesting study that came out a few days ago. This research article discusses the outcomes of surgery versus physical therapy for patients suffering from cervical radiculopathy. The surgical procedure was anterior cervical decompression and fusion. Physical therapy included general/specific exercises and pain coping methods. After 1 year, the patients that underwent surgery had superior outcomes, but at 2 year follow-up, the outcomes were the same!

As you all know, the spinal cord is such a sensitive area. It is important that we minimize as much trauma as possible to the area. Cervical radiculopathy, in the past, has been a cause for surgery. The fact that evidence is emerging to justify conservative treatment trials prior to surgery is very exciting! Something to note from the study is the lack of manual therapy as one of the physical therapy interventions. It might be interesting to see how the addition of manual therapy alters any of the outcomes.

3 Comments

Nick Rainey link

6/24/2013 05:12:59 am

Even if the findings weren't in favor of PT interventions why not try PT. It definitely won't decrease outcomes at 1 or 2 years if surgery ends up being performed anyway.

It is interesting that manual therapy was left out. While we don't have a lot of strong evidence for which interventions are best for cervical radiculopathy there have been improvements seen and manual therapy and exercise are always part of the research.

Chris link

6/24/2013 09:19:43 am

I definitely agree that PT would be worth trying anyway to avoid surgery. The results of this study only reinforce that! In regards to manual therapy being left out of the study, it's possible the researchers were hesitant to include clinicians with various levels of experience/techniques. However, one method could be to utilize clinicians with additional credentialing in manual therapy. Hopefully future studies consider this given the fact that manual therapy has shown to be effective in other research findings.

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Physical Therapy vs. Surgery for Cervical Radiculopathy

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