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CLINICAL TRIAL article
Front. Med.
Sec. Geriatric Medicine
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1550047
This article is part of the Research Topic From Crosstalk Among Cell Populations in the Microenvironment of Bone Degenerative Diseases to the Novel Therapeutic Approaches View all 5 articles
Immediate effects of high-intensity laser therapy for nonspecific neck pain: A double-blind randomized controlled trial
Provisionally accepted- 1 Gannan Health Vocational College, Ganzhou, China
- 2 Dongguan First Hospital affiliated to Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, China
The objective of this research was to assess the immediate effects of high-intensity laser therapy (HILT) on nonspecific neck pain (NNP) by evaluating outcome measures such as pain intensity, cervical active range of motion (ROM), stiffness of neck muscles, and functional disability. Methods: This clinical trial, which was conducted in a double-blind and randomized manner, involved patients diagnosed with NNP who were allocated either to either a HILT group (HILT + exercise) or a placebo group (placebo-laser therapy + exercise). The primary outcome measures encompassed pain intensity via the visual analogue scale (VAS), cervical active ROM, stiffness of neck muscles (splenius capitis, semispinalis capitis, and neck fascia), as well as functional disability via the Neck Disability Index (NDI). Statistical evaluations were carried out using SPSS version 25.0, with a significance threshold established at p < 0.05. Results: A total of 28 individuals diagnosed with NNP were randomly allocated to either the HILT group (n=14) or the placebo group (n=14). Upon initial comparison, no significant differences (p>0.05) were observed between the two groups. After treatment, both groups showed notable improvements in all outcome measures compared to baseline (p<0.05); Moreover, the HILT group demonstrated greater efficacy compared to the placebo group in terms of VAS scores (29.64±8.43mm, p=0.001), cervical lateral flexion (right 22.46±3.62°, p=0.011; left 22.34±2.74°, p=0.034) and neck muscle shear modulus (splenius capitis muscle 22.48±4.03kPa, p=0.001; semispinalis capitis muscle 23.50±5.59kPa, p=0.028); however, no statistically significant differences (p>0.05) were identified between the groups in cervical flexion, extension, rotation, neck fascia stiffness and NDI scores. Conclusions: HILT has immediate efficacy for NNP and may be considered as one of the alternative interventions for NNP. Clinical trial registration: http://www.chictr.org.cn/, ChiCTR2200061008.
Keywords: High-intensity laser therapy, Nonspecific neck pain, Muscle stiffness, randomized controlled trial, Rehabilitation
Received: 22 Dec 2024; Accepted: 25 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xie, Diao and LIAO. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yu-Hua Xie, Gannan Health Vocational College, Ganzhou, China
Lin-Rong LIAO, Dongguan First Hospital affiliated to Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, China
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