Background: Neck pain is a common musculoskeletal complaint with tremendous impact on health and quality of life. Neck pain also leads to pulmonary function restrictive disorder. Aim: This study aimed to investigate the effect of deep cervical muscle training using pressure biofeedback device on ventilatory functions in patients with chronic mechanical neck pain. Subjects: Forty subjects of both sexes with mean age 24.8± 1.87 years were participated in this study. They were divided into two groups equal in number; the study group (A) and the control group (B) who were suffering from chronic mechanical neck pain. Methods: Group A received deep cervical flexor strengthening exercises and traditional physical therapy modalities. Group B received only traditional physical therapy modalities. Both groups were assessed using the neck disability index questionnaire for functional disability, visual analogue scale for pain intensity, craniocervical flexion test for deep cervical flexor muscle strength and spirometric tests for ventilatory functions. Patients were assessed before and after treatment. Results: The results of this study showed that there was significant improvement in craniocervical flexion test, maximum voluntary ventilation and peak expiratory flow rate in the study group only (p = 0.0001). There was a statistically significant improvement in neck disability index (p = 0.0001), visual analogue scale (p= 0.0001), forced vital capacity (p = 0.002) and forced expiratory volume in 1 second (p= 0.01) in both groups, however, there was no statistically significant difference between both groups. Conclusion: It is concluded that deep cervical flexor strengthening exercise combined with traditional physical therapy modalities have better clinical effects on the mechanical neck pain and ventilatory functions than traditional physical therapy modalities alone in patients with chronic mechanical neck pain.
