Musculoskeletal Disorders: Association with Mobile Phone Usage, and Treatment Options with Special Reference to Pain and Spasticity

Abstract

Background According to the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) report 2016, nearly 125 million or more than half of the US population suffer from cervical (50.6%) or lumbar pain (43 %) .According to the Institute Of Health Metrics And Evaluation India, cervical and lumbar pain are the third most non-communicable diseases which cause major disability. As conventional pharmacological agents like NSAIDs and opioids are associated with a lot of side effects hence pregabalin is being prescribed widely now a days as an off label drug for the treatment of radicular pain. Though pregabalin is the most commonly prescribed drug for all sorts of radicular pain but the previous studies have reported that it is as effective as a placebo in treating cervical and lumbar radicular pain .There is a dearth of studies determining the efficacy of pregabalin as compared to a placebo in cervical and lumbar radicular pain. Aim and Objectives The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy and safety of pregabalin in cervical and lumbar radicular pain. Material and Methods One thousand and forty four patients with cervical and lumbar radicular pain were enrolled in the present study which was carried out both prospectively and retrospectively. The patients were divided in two groups, group I patients received only physiotherapy whereas group II patients received physiotherapy plus pregabalin, Data were collected at different intervals (baseline, week 2, week 4, week and 6 week respectively) for both the groups. Response to treatment was evaluated in three outcome domains: pain; disability; and patient satisfaction. Pain was measured using the numeric rating pain scale (NRS).The change in disability level and patient satisfaction with treatment were evaluated by using the oswestry disability index (ODI) and the patient’s global impression of change scale (PGIC), respectively.Results In both group I and group II, there was a significant improvement from baseline to week 6 in terms of pain, disability and patient satisfaction. However, the NRS and the ODI was significantly higher in group II at baseline, week 2, week 4 as compared to group I ; while at week 6 NRS and the ODI was not significantly different in both the groups. In terms of patient satisfaction, when group II was compared to group I, patients impression of the change in his overall quality of life did not significantly differ in both groups at different time points i.e baseline, week 2,week 4 and week 6. Conclusion The results of our study suggest that there is no significant difference between pregabalin and physiotherapy in terms reducing the pain , disability and improving the quality of life of the patients suffering from cervical or lumbar radicular pain.