Cervical Syringomyelia;

Abstract

Background: Cervical syringomyelia is a rare condition and which can beidiopathic or secondary to trauma. Syrinx is most often treated surgically but can be risky atcervical level thus conservative management should be considered, however literature lacksregarding the role of conservative physical therapy management of cervical syringomyelia.Case description: A 33 year old man with an idiopathic syrinx at C6-C7 level presented with achief complaint of neck pain, radiating to his right arm, associated with paresthesia involvingIndex and Middle finger and a positive spurling test with postural deviation and associateddisability. Intervention and Outcomes: The patient received physical therapy managementconsisting of pain management, cervical traction, joint mobilization and soft tissue manualtherapy aimed at postural and biomechanical correction in combination with medications. Thepatient’s symptoms improved from 80/100mm to 30/100mm on Visual Analogue Scale and39 to 25 on Neck Disability Index (NDI). Marked improvement was also observed in cervicalposture and Range of Motion (ROM). Discussion and Conclusion: Conservative managementincluding medication and physical therapy of a patient with cervical syrinx do not decreasethe cervical syrinx size but can alleviate patient’s signs and symptoms by postural andbiomechanical correction at the segmental level leading to normalization of spinal curves anddecreased tensional and compressive stress on spinal tissue.