#0027 The effects of walking intervention on preventing neck pain in office workers: A randomized controlled trial
Walk this Way: Benefits of Walking for Work-Induced Neck Pain
Chronic neck pain is a debilitating condition that may develop as a result of sedentary office work. With 42–69% of workers reporting neck pain yearly, timely and effective interventions are required to reduce the risk of its onset.
While systematic exercise programs at workplaces have been shown to moderately reduce the risk of neck pain, low adherence to the regimens is a major caveat in the implementation of these programs.
Thus, we aimed to find out whether interventions to promote regular walking among office workers can be used to address the low adherence to other exercise programs aiming to prevent neck pain.
For our study, we recruited a group of healthy participants who had not experienced severe neck pain in the past 12 months. We then randomly assigned participants to either an intervention or a control group. The intervention group was instructed to increase their daily walking steps to a designated level over 6 months. The optimal daily steps were customized for each participant, as the mobile application took into account individual factors like sitting and standing hours, body weight, and age. To ensure adherence, the steps were monitored by us daily through a mobile application. The control group, on the other hand, received no such intervention.
We found that only 22% of the participants receiving the intervention reported an occurrence of neck pain, as compared to 32% participants from the control group. This was despite the fact that for the two groups, the number of steps only differed by approximately 1,000 steps. This indicates that even a small increase in the number of steps can have considerable health benefits for office workers. We also found that high BMI was a risk factor for neck pain onset.
However, we did not note any significant reduction in the intensity of neck pain or disability as a result of walking. Thus, our findings suggest that while a walking intervention can prevent the risk of neck pain onset in workers, it cannot be used to reduce the pain intensity or disability in those already suffering from it.
Link to the original journal article:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/1348-9585.12106
Title of the paper:
The effects of walking intervention on preventing neck pain in office workers: A randomized controlled trial
Authors:
Ekalak Sitthipornvorakul, Rattaporn Sihawong, Pooriput Waongenngarm, Prawit Janwantanakul
