Age Specific Normative Data of Deep Neck Flexor Endurance for Asymptomatic Young Adults

Background and purpose: Decreased deep neck flexor endurance has been found to be a causative as well as a contributory factor of neck pain. But it is less common to, for therapists to perform endurance testing in clinical setting. One of the main constraints for this is that literature contains little age specific data concerning normal values of deep neck flexor endurance. Lack of baseline age specific reference values is a limitation in quantification of physical performance of deep neck flexor muscles.

The purpose of the study is to establish age specific normative data of deep neck flexor endurance for asymptomatic young adults using deep neck flexor endurance test.

Study design: A normative research study design.

Subject and method: This study involved 400 asymptomatic subjects aged between 20-40 years (young adults), deep neck flexor endurance test was used to quantify static endurance. The mean and standard deviation scores were determined.

Results: Age specific normal values of deep neck flexor endurance time (mean±SD) for 20-40 years(young adults), 20-29 years(males), 30-40years(males), 20-29years(females) and 30-40 years(females) were 22.8±3.7sec., 27.5±2.4sec., 22.9±1.4sec., 21.5±2.6sec., 19.4±1.8sec. respectively. We found that overall static endurance of deep neck flexor muscles declined with advancing age among both genders.

Conclusion: This study established a set of age specific normative data of deep neck flexor endurance for young adults using deep neck flexor endurance test. These values can be used to compare patient's endurance score at intake to recognize muscle dysfunction, provide benchmarks for setting treatment goals to increase endurance capacity and provide outcome measure for evaluating success of an intervention in clinical practice.