Participate in Research at CU Anschutz

This study wants to learn which physical therapy treatments are most helpful to individuals with chronic neck pain including parts of treatment outside of the treatment itself such as the patient and therapist relationship. The study will compare two different treatments, resistance exercise and manual therapy. Resistance exercise builds muscle strength by making your muscles work against a weight or force. Manual therapy is using forces on muscles or joints to treat pain or discomfort.

This study will look at the different mechanisms of each treatment and how the mechanisms help improve chronic neck pain. Mechanisms include each individual step of the treatment (specific) and how each individual step works together to form the overall treatment process (shared). We will study how the individual steps (specific mechanisms) and the overall process (shared mechanisms) of manual therapy and resistance training help chronic neck pain.

Main Procedures Involved: You will be assigned to either the resistance exercise or manual therapy treatment groups. You will also need to complete exercises during each in-person session and each week at home based on your assigned treatment group.

Duration of Participation: 5 total sessions (~40 minutes each) over 4 weeks (one session/week) plus a remote follow-up at 6 months