Stretching Exercise for the Prevention of Postoperative Neck Symptoms Following Thyroid Surgery.

Introduction: Thyroid surgery is a popular and effective treatment for many thyroid diseases, including thyroid cancer. However, patients who undergo thyroid surgery often experience discomfort symptoms such as stretching, pressing, or choking feelings in the neck, headache, shoulder stiffness, and difficulty in moving the neck or shoulders. These symptoms may persist for long durations. Based on our prospective randomized study published in 2005, Materials and Methods: Patients who underwent thyroid surgery, except for those who had undergone reconstruction of the recurrent laryngeal nerve or trachea, were instructed stretching exercises starting the morning after surgery, to be performed at least thrice a day until their neck-shoulder symptoms disappeared. In our prospective randomized study, a total of 409 patients, including 234 patients with thyroid cancer, were randomly allocated into a stretching group and a control group that was not given the stretching instruction. Results: The postoperative neck symptoms declined gradually after the surgery in both the groups over the study period. The total symptom scores were significantly lower in the stretching group than those in the control group at all the time points after the surgery ( Conclusions: Stretching exercises, starting from the day after thyroid surgery, are simple and easy to perform and effectively prevent postoperative neck discomfort symptoms. No competing financial interests exist: Runtime of video: 10 mins 4 secs.