Effect of Neurodynamic Mobilisation Plus Core Stability on Pain and Motor Nerve Conduction Velocity in Athletes with Lumbar Radiculopathy

Introduction. Lumbar radiculopathy (LR) is a common debilitating disorder of neuromuscular origin that affects athletes. Material and Methods. This study was a parallel group design and a total of 24 clinically diagnosed athletes with LR were recruited for the study and randomly assigned to one of the two groups, i.e. neurodynamic mobilisation plus core stability group (NDS plus CS) and core stability group only (CS). NDS plus CS underwent neural mobilisation of the tibial nerve and core stability exercises, while CS group performed core stability for a total of 14 sessions on alternate days. The outcome measures of motor nerve conduction velocity (m NCV) of the tibial nerve and pain intensity were recorded before the start of the intervention, at midpoint (7th session) and at the end of the intervention (14th session). Results. Baseline scores of pain and m NCV (NDS plus CS: 6.75 ± 0.62, 38.10 ± 7.21 and CS: 6.58 ± 0.79, 38.92 ± 6.37) were non-significant. The outcome measures improved significantly during treatment in NDS plus CS group (baseline to 7th session, 7th to 14th session and overall mean change for pain and m NCV was found to be 4.74 ± 0.37 and -6.43 ± 3.08, respectively. Non-significant improvement was reported for CS group. Two-way repeated measures (2 x 3) ANOVA was used to analyse the change in the outcome measures and revealed that NDS plus CS group showed statistically significant main effects for group on pain level (F (2, 5.34) = 0.89, p < 0.001 and m NCV (F (2, 5.21) = 0.40, p < 0.03. Significant time and group x time interaction effects were also found. Conclusions. The findings of the study revealed that neurodynamic mobilisation plus core stability were found effective in improving pain level and motor nerve conduction velocity of the tibial nerve in athletes with lumbar radiculopathy.