Background: Pain due to chronic soft tissue injury of the neck and shoulder is a commonly encountered and frequently occurring condition. Traditional Chinese medicine is a common course of treatment for soft tissue injury and may have better therapeutic effects than biomedical options.
Objective: To evaluate the clinical therapeutic effects of Chinese herbal medicine warming meridians to nourish blood on chronic pain due to soft tissue injury in the neck and shoulder.
Design, setting, participants and interventions: A random and control method was adopted. Sixty-three patients with pain of the neck and shoulder due to chronic soft tissue injury, presenting with blood deficiency and cold coagulation syndrome, were randomly divided into treatment group (n=32) and control group (n=31). There was a drop-out case in treatment group. All the patients were collected from the clinic service of the Department of Rehabilitation at the General Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army. Patients received oral and written information about clinical procedures before signing their written informed consent. Patients in the treatment group were treated with Chinese herbal decoctions for warming meridians to nourish blood and cervical traction. Patients in the control group were treated with cervical traction. The course of treatment was 14 days.
Main outcome measures: A visual analog scale (VAS) was used to record test data in the two groups before and after treatment, and therapeutic effect was compared after treatment between the two groups.
Results: After treatment, VAS scores of the treatment group and the control group were decreased as compared with before treatment (t=5.01, P<0.01; t=4.91, P<0.01). Difference of VAS scores between before and after treatment in the treatment group was higher than that in the control group (t=2.44, P<0.05).
Conclusion: The treatment method of warming meridians to nourish blood combined with cervical traction has better therapeutic effect than only applying traction for chronic pain due to soft tissue injury of the neck and shoulder.

Key words: soft tissue injury, pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, randomized controlled trial