BACKGROUND: Neck is one of the most common sites of musculoskeletal symptoms, and muscle shortening and weakness is observed to be a common cause of neck pain and disability. OBJECTIVE: To compare the immediate and short term effects of static stretching (SS), autogenic inhibition (AI) and reciprocal inhibition (RI) muscle energy techniques (MET) on isometric muscle strength in the management of mechanical neck pain. METHODS: A randomized controlled trial was conducted on 78 participants with neck pain randomly allocated to SS, AI-MET and RI-MET groups. All the participants received transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), hot pack and unilateral postero-anterior glide, followed by 3 to 5 repetitions of either SS, AI-MET or RI-MET for five consecutive sessions. Numeric pain rating scale (NPRS) and modified sphygmomanometer dynamometry (MSD) were used as outcome measurement tools. One way ANOVA and repeated measures ANOVA were used for inter-group and intra-group comparison. RESULT: In terms of MSD scores, a significant difference (p < 0.05) was observed between the groups. Both AI-MET and RI-MET were found to be comparatively more effective than SS, however AI-MET was found to be the most effective. CONCLUSION: AI-MET is more effective than SS and RI-MET in terms of improving isometric muscle strength in patients with mechanical neck pain.

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