OBJECTIVES: To determine the effectiveness of exercise therapy as a treatment for work related upper limb disorders (WRULDs). BACKGROUND: WRULDs are common and costly conditions with little agreement about the most effective treatment. Exercise therapy appears to be the most common intervention used by physiotherapists but it is not clear which type of exercise is to be used. METHODS: All English language, human subject, clinical controlled trials that evaluated the effectiveness of exercise therapy for patients with WRULD were included. One reviewer extracted the data from the studies and assessed the methodological rigour of the study using the PEDro scoring system. RESULTS: 12 studies were included. Strength training of the neck and shoulder muscles appears to be the most effective type of training for this population. Numerous methodological flaws were highlighted with the literature, including a lack of standardised outcome measures, no clear inclusion/exclusion criteria and poor compliance to exercise programmes. CONCLUSION: There appears to be significant differences in clinical outcomes between strength training and other types of exercise therapy (endurance training, stretching etc). More rigorous randomised controlled trials are needed to confirm the promising results presented here.

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