None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
The human body's response to stress, illness or injury is the stress response. It has two components which work together. These are the autonomic nervous system and endocrine system. The stress response can either be increased or decreased. If it is increased you may feel alert and your heart may beat fast, whereas if it is decreased you may feel sleepy and your heart beats slowly. Smartphone application measurements and saliva samples will be used to measure the autonomic and endocrine system parts of the stress response before and after gentle movements of joints in participants necks. The primary goal of this research is to investigate whether therapeutic movement of the joints at top of the neck compared to moving the joints at the bottom of the neck cause a different ‘stress response’, as measured by changes in the autonomic and endocrine systems. Due to the anatomy of the neck, we hypothesise that moving the upper joints in the neck will decrease the stress response, whereas moving the joints at the bottom of the neck will increase the stress response.
Interventions
Cervical spine mobilization manual therapy technique
-Arm 1-Upper cervical spine mobilization applied to C0-1 and C1-2 for 3 lots of 2 minutes each, separated by a 30 second rest.
-Arm 2-Lower cervical spine mobilization applied to C6-7 and C7-T1 for 3 lots of 2 minutes each, separated by a 30 second rest.
Each mobilization will be low frequency, mid-range, bilateral and alternating oscillations.
All interventions will be performed by the same operator (certified musculoskeletal physiotherapist
Cervical spine mobilization manual therapy technique -Arm 1-Upper cervical spine mobilization applied to C0-1 and C1-2 for 3 lots of 2 minutes each, separated by a 30 second rest. -Arm 2-Lower cervical spine mobilization applied to C6-7 and C7-T1 for 3 lots of 2 minutes each, separated by a 30 second rest. Each mobilization will be low frequency, mid-range, bilateral and alternating oscillations. All interventions will be performed by the same operator (certified musculoskeletal physiotherapist specialist with over 30 years clinical experience), face to face, and on an individual basis. The intervention will be delivered 2 times. One session will be upper cervical mobilisation, and the other will be lower cervical mobilisation, separated by a 1 week washout period. Each participant will receive each intervention. The order of intervention will be randomized. Each intervention will be held in the same room at the School of Physiotherapy, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Sponsors
Gerard Farrell
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Crossover
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Blinded (masking used) (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
Male
Age
21 Years to 35 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Healthy males aged between 21-35 years old who own an iPhone and have no current pain, illness or injury.
Exclusion criteria
Participants will be excluded if they have a history of a serious medical or psychiatric disorder, are currently on systemic glucocorticoid or cardioactive medication, or currently have an endocrine, central nervous system, cardiovascular or a mental health disorder. To ensure participants are safe to receive the intervention, they will be screened in more detail for any contra-indications to manual therapy (i.e. fracture, dislocation, spinal cord damage) and will be excluded accordingly. If any precautions to manual therapy are present (i.e. systemically unwell, osteoporosis, throat infection), participants will be excluded on a case by case basis.
Outcome results
None listed