Introduction: Cervical radiculopathy is a neck pain that is a result of the failure of the nerve roots. It is a frequent defect that causes pain in the neck and it often passes to the upper limb – depending on the location of the affected nerve root. CR can be treated with different treatments, like cervical spine traction, techniques of manual therapy, therapeutic exercise, electrotherapy procedures and education of the patient. Purpose: The purpose of this dissertation is to present the evidence based physiotherapy when treating patients with neck pain, based on the basis of scientific literature. Methods: The literature was searched in the databases PubMed, DiKUL, Cochrane Library, PEDro and COBISS. Results: The literature review included ten randomized controlled studies that studied the effectiveness of different therapies for the treatment of cervical radiculopathy. Five of the ten studies recommended the cervical spine traction, six of them recommended manual therapy, and nine of them recommended therapeutic exercise combined to other types of therapy. In four studies they reported on the effectiveness of electrotherapy (infrared, ultrasound, laser), but only in combination with the above-listed procedures. In one study they recommended the use of cervical splint and resting at the beginning of the treatment, but some more research has to be done to confirm the efficancy of this method. Discussion and conclusion: As the reviewed studies used different parameters and measurement tools, it is difficult to compare their final conclusion. Additional research should be done to prove the most effective combination of procedures for the treatment of cervical radiculopathy.
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