Neck Solutions

Head repositioning accuracy to neutral: A comparative study of error calculation

From: Manual Therapy. 2008 May 23; [Epub ahead of print]

Deficits in cervical proprioception have been identified in subjects with neck pain through the measure of head repositioning accuracy. Nevertheless there appears to be no general consensus regarding the construct of measurement of error used for calculating head repositioning accuracy. This study investigated four different mathematical methods of measurement of error to determine if there were any differences in their ability to discriminate between a control group and subjects with a whiplash associated disorder. The four methods for measuring cervical joint position error were calculated using a previous data set consisting of 50 subjects with whiplash complaining of dizziness, 50 subjects with whiplash not complaining of dizziness and 50 control subjects. The results indicated that no one measure of head repositioning accuracy uniquely detected or defined the differences between the whiplash and control groups. Constant error was significantly different between the whiplash and control groups from extension. Absolute errors and root mean square errors demonstrated differences between the two whiplash associated disorder groups in rotation trials. No differences were seen with variable error. The results suggest that a combination of absolute errors or root mean square error and constant error are probably the most suitable measures for analysis of head repositioning accuracy.