Additive effect of "Brahma Mudra" on pain, proprioception and functional abilities in non-specific mechanical neck pain.

Objective: Being the second highest musculoskeletal problem irrespective of age, gender and occupation, the etiology of neck pain is predominantly mechanical in nature. This can lead to dysfunction with time and recurrence. Altered joint position sense (JPS) from soft tissues can alter the cervical biomechanics by compromising the cephalo spatial orientation, which depends on the visual, vestibular and proprioceptive cues. This study was done to observe the additive effect of "Brahma mudra" (BM) a yogic tool on non-specific mechanical neck pain and its clinical implication on pain, proprioception and functional abilities.

Methods: It was a quasi-experimental pre -post study design involving 30 individuals from a software firm between the age group of 18-45 years. The conventional treatment group received standard physiotherapy regime and in the BM group BM was incorporated in addition to standard physiotherapy regime. Independent sample student t-test/Mann Whitney test were used to compare continuous variables between two groups. Paired sample test/Wilcoxon signed rank test were used for within groups.

Results: There was a significant reduction in pain, improved functional abilities and proprioception in BM group when compared to conventional treatment group with 0.01 level of statistical significance.

Conclusion: It may be concluded that practice of BM had an added effect to conventional standard physiotherapy regime in reduction of pain, improvement of proprioception and functional abilities among individuals with chronic non-specific mechanical neck pain.