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Abstract Background and purpose: The deep cervical flexor muscles have a major role in neck stabilization and evidence suggests that these muscles especially longus colli muscle (LCM) becomes dysfunctional in panitents suffering from cervicogenic headache. Therefore, measurement of these muscles in healthy subjects and patients may be of great value to understand the stabilization function of the muscles and also to fallow the effect of interventions. The purpose of this study was to assess within and between days reliability of LCM anterior-posterior dimension(APD) and lateral dimension (LD) measurement using ultrasonography (US) in a group of healthy subjects and a group of patients with cervicogenic headache. Materials and methods: This methodological research was performed on 19 subjects including 10patients with cervicogenic headache and 9 healthy subjects. Neck LCM dimensions was measured at the level of thyroid cartilage using a real time US device. Two images of LCM dimensions were taken on the same day with an hour interval to assess the within- day reliability and the third image was taken tow days later to determine between- days reliability. Then data were compared using statistical analysis. Results: Healthy subjects were aged between 20-35 and patients between 20- 25 The ICC measurements for within day and between days reliability in healthy subjects were varied ranging from 0.80 to 0.92 for APD, 0.68-0.89 for LD. In patients group it was also ranged between 0.90- 0.92 and 0.81-0.90 respectively. The highest reliability score were performed for APD measurement in healthy subjects and patients with cervicogenic headache (ICC= 0.92). Conclusion: The results indicated that US could be a reliable tool to measure the LCM dimensions in healthy subjects and patients with cervicogenic headache. Therefore, this non invasive method can be used to follow up the effect of exercise therapy interventions.

Keywords: Key words: Ultrasonography, Longus colli muscle, cervicogenic headache, Muscle dimensions, Reliability, longus colli muscle thickness, longus colli muscle width

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