Correlation Between Neck and Upper Limb Functions in Railway Coolies of Ahmedabad

Background And Need Of Research: Neck and shoulder are part of upper limb kinematic chain, which strongly suggests that pain in one will lead to disability in other. Moreover, coolies have to walk speedily, cross platform bridges with heavily load as quickly as possible. Such conditions can cause the rate of occurrence of Work-related musculoskeletal disorder (WMSD) like the neck, back, and shoulder pain is high among coolies because of their nature of work. As a result of this, neck pain and shoulder disability should occur in correlation to each other. Hence, to determine the frequency of neck pain Neck Disability Index (NDI) was taken and for level of disability of upper limb (Shoulder Pain & Disability Index SPADI), was used. Purpose Of Study: The aim of study is to nd correlation between neck and upper limb functions in railway coolies of Ahmedabad. Methodology: A study was conducted among 76 males of railway coolies in Ahmedabad city. Verbal consent was taken. Neck functions were recorded by using Gujarati version of NDI and Upper limb functions were recorded by using Gujarati version of SPADI. Data Analysis was done through Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version. Result: Total 76 males' participants were included. Normality was tested by Shapiro wilk test. Data was not normally distributed, so the Spearman rank correlation test was used. Signicance level was kept at P≤0.05. correlation coefcient (r) between scores of NDI and SPADI was 0.636 and p value was 0.000. Result suggests that scores of NDI have moderate signicant positive correlation with score of SPADI. Conclusion: Conclusion of a study is that neck pain can lead to pain and functional limitations of upper limb and vice versa in coolies.