Therapeutic Effects of Posture-Breath Technique in Patients with Scapulocostal Syndrome: A Randomized Controlled Trial
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Abstract
Background: Scapulocostal syndrome (SCS) is chronic pain with complex pathogenesis, which currently has no standard treatment. From Biomechanics, some scapular muscles are postural muscles, which act as both postural control and breathing. Posture-breath technique (PBT) was designed for pain reduction and autonomic nervous system (ANS) balancing in patients with SCS.
Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of PBT compared with general exercise (GEN) in patients with SCS, on pain alteration and heart rate variability (HRV).
Methods: Forty-seven patients with SCS were divided by stratified block randomization into 2 groups, which received similar usual physical therapy care (hot-pack and ultrasound) but differed in exercise program (PBT/ GEN). Each group's time and frequency of treatment were 46 minute/session and 3 sessions/week within 3 weeks. Pressure pain threshold (PPT), visual analog scale (VAS), average pain intensity within previous 24 hours (24hrVAS), and HRV were assessed before, after the first, and last treatment. Mixed-model ANOVA was used to determine differences within-between groups in each three-time point.
Results: Comparing within-group, PBT group showed significantly increased PPT-only short-term effects (p<0.05). VAS and 24hrVAS in both groups start to decrease significantly after the first treatment. For HRV, the only immediate effect in PBT group was a significant increase. However, all outcome measures in both groups showed no significant difference (p>0.05).
Conclusion: PBT group can increase PPT at short-term effects, reduced pain intensity after the first treatment, and no disrupted balancing of ANS in patients with SCS. However, all therapeutic effects, except PPT, were not different from GEN group.
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