Investigation of Effects of Physiotherapy Interventions on Mechanical Properties of Muscle in Head and Neck Cancer

Plain-language summary

As the head and neck cancer (HNC) survival rate has increased and therefore, the focus of post-treatments is to improve the quality of patients' life by decreasing the side effects. Treatment of HNC leads to acute and chronic soft tissue damage, and functional loss. However, patients with HNC need having rehabilitation throughout the post-treatment phase so as to improve functional outcomes because of the long term side effects. Chronic shoulder morbidity is one of the complications after surgery due to spinal accesory nerve injury. Moreover, pain, dysphonia, and musculoskeletal impairments are observed in the individuals after the treatments and the patients also have trouble swallowing problems, loss of taste, dry mouth, trismus, nausea, vomiting, and fatigue during and after therapy. Since there is limited research on the usage of manual therapy techniques in HNC patients, this study aims to investigate muscle changes after surgery and the effectiveness of physiotherapy on muscle material behaviour from a biomechanical perspective by using shear wave elastography. In this respect, the hypothesis is: H0: Physical therapy interventions do not impact mechanical properties of muscle, pain, quality of life, cervical and shoulder functionality in HNC patients after neck dissection. H1: Physical therapy interventions will improve mechanical properties of muscle, pain, quality of life, cervical and shoulder functionality in HNC patients after neck dissection.

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