Pain arising from the neck, or ‘cervicalgia’, has many different underlying causes. These include problems connected to poor posture, sedentary behaviour, the use of improper pillows, impact sports, a ‘slipped disc’, arthritis and, not least, traumatic events such as whiplash injury. Cervical pain can be localized to the neck or felt in other parks of the body. Cervicobrachialgia is the term used to describe sharp, shooting type pain that is perceived in the shoulder, arm, and hand, through the fingers. This is often caused by nerve root compression but the formation of a clear diagnosis is fundamental to plan a proper rehabilitation path. This will always require a thorough clinic examination and often a series of investigations. These may include a series of X-rays, which help evaluate the state of the vertebra and their alignment, a CT scan or an MRI to detect possible compression of the spinal cord or presence of the slipped discs causing compression of the nerve roots. 

Conservative (non operative) methods can treat the vast majority of cases of cervicalgia, especially when the underlying cause and contributing factors are appropriately addressed. During therapeutic sessions manual based therapies are used to help relax the muscles of the cervical spine and shoulder girdle that are commonly a source of tension. Specific exercises are utilized to help strengthen deeper, postural muscles of the neck and shoulder girdle that often become weaker from poor posture, pain or disuse. Stretching of overactive is also particularly effective. An important matter is identifying at the first examination poor postural habits that can make the rehabilitation path more complicated and neutralise positive results. The patient has to be conscious of the fact that, in part, the results patients obtain depend on small details of their lives such as the way they sit on the sofa, or the time they spend in front of a computer. This attention to detail may seem trivial, but these small factors often explain why symptoms persist for months or even years.