Neck Pain and Rehabilitation

Abstract

Neck pain is par excellence one of the most common disorders of the musculoskeletal system, second only to low back pain. It constitutes 40 % of all backache. The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) defines pain of cervical origin coming from an area between the nuchal line and another imagi-nary line that passes through the lower end of the spinous process of the first thoracic vertebra and the sagittal plans tangent to the side edges of the neck. This definition considers therefore posterior pain which in turn can be divided into high pain, up to C3, and lower pain, down from C4. Also, as all diseases, it can be divided into acute and chronic neck pain, merely according to the time of onset: it lasts more than 3 months in the first case and for longer in the second case. The painful perception depends on the nociceptive elicitation of the major structures innervated in the neck region, such as cervical muscles, ligaments, facet joints and nerve roots.