Abstract
Objectives The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical effects of repeatedly performed of balneotherapy on cervical pain. Methods We investigate 19 cervical pain subjects in this study. Subjects took 5 session of balneotherapy once a week during 5 weeks. Each session consisted of 15 minutes of high pressure underwater shower ($32{\sim}36^{\circ}C$) and another 15 minutes of whole body bathing ($32{\sim}40^{\circ}C$). To evaluate the efficiency of balneotherapy visual analogue scale (VAS) and pain threshold were applied before treatment and after 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th treatment. Then the results were analysed. Results 1) The average of VAS significantly decressed from $59.11{\pm}14.67$ to $33.95{\pm}20.988$ after 5 weeks of balneothreapy treatment (p<0.001). 2) The average of pain threshold significantly increased from $5.76{\pm}1.294$ lbf to $8.74{\pm}1.126$ lbf after 5 weeks of balneothreapy treatment (p<0.001). Conclusions Balneotherapy has clinical effscts of pain reduction on cervical pain subjects. Balneotherapy can be used in addition to the Oriental physiotherapy for high effective treatment on cervical pain. Further clinical studies are required to verify these findings.