Aim and Objective: Shoulder joint is the most common joint to be effected by the degenerative process of the body. As it offers more mobility than stability, overuse injuries not only affect the shoulder joint but also exert their effect to distal segments of the limb. Due to the anatomical linkage with the spine, any abnormality at the shoulder is thereby suspected to affect the spinal biomechanics and the associated nervous system functioning. Researchers have postulated hand muscle weakness to be an associated finding in subjects with shoulder joint pathologies and thus the following study was aimed at determining the effectiveness cervicothoracic mobilization and hand grip exercise on grip strength in subjects with impingement syndrome. Method: 20 subjects with history of impingement syndrome for at least 4 weeks and positive Neers and Hawkins Kennedy test were randomly assigned into two groups of 10 subjects each. Group A underwent cervicothoracic mobilization and group B received hand grip strengthening protocol for 1 month, thrice a week and once a day. Readings for grip strength were taken by a hand held dynamometer before starting and after the intervention i.e. after one month. Data Analysis: Statistics were performed using Graph pad. Intra group and inter group analysis was done and Mann Whitney test was used to analyze and compare the intervention scores. Significance level was set at p d” 0.05. Results: Though both the groups improved significantly, group A, cervicothoracic mobilization group resulted in more significant hand grip strength improvement when compared with group B, the hand grip exercise group. Discussion and Conclusion: results conclude that apart from the standard hand grip exercises, cervicothoracic mobilization can be effectively used to enhance the grip strength in subjects with impingement syndrome. 

Keywords: Cervicothoracic junction; Hand grip; Supraspinatus tendinitis; Impingement syndrome.