Papers of the Week

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, we instructed patients who underwent thyroid surgery at Kuma Hospital to perform stretching exercises starting from the day after the surgery. Although we are of the opinion that this management is easy and effective, it might not be well recognized in the world. The purpose of this video is to demonstrate our method of instructing exercises to patients after thyroid surgery and to briefly describe our rehabilitation study.