Chronic Neck Pain Disorder and Posture in computer office worker

Abstract

During the last two decades there has been a large increase in the number of Computer Office Workers (COW). The main musculoskeletal disorders in COW affect the upper limbs, neck/ cervical spine, head and spine and they could have a multifactorial etiology. Among those commonly complains cited by these workers, neck pain is the most prevalent. The neck pain may be associated with body posture changes and temporomandibular disorders (TMD). The aim of this proposal is to verify associations between Cervical and Temporomandibular Disorders and body posture changes in COW with and without neck pain. Employees (age range of 20 to 40 years) from the University of São Paulo (Ribeirão Preto) will be recruited to participate in this study. In this study 66 workers will be randomly chosen and will be divided into 2 groups. One of the groups composed by COW without report o neck pain (n=33) and a group with positive report of chronic neck pain (n=33) whose volunteers must contemplate the following criteria: a) neck pain complain for at least 3 months, b) functional limitation, at least mild classification for the Neck Disability Index and c) pain intensity at least 3 in the majority of the days with pain in a numerical pain scale (0 to 10). After this stage, clinical assessment must be conducted to assess TMD, static body posture and pressure pain thresholds of neck and orofacial sites. This work will contribute to verify associations among craniocervical disorders, TMD and body posture changes in in these workers.