NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Sleeping with a neck support pillow and doing neck exercises can help ease chronic neck pain, Canadian researchers report.

"Our results indicate that subjects with chronic neck pain should be treated by health professionals trained to teach both exercises and the appropriate use of a neck support pillow during sleep; either strategy alone will not give the desired clinical benefit," Dr. Hugh A. Smythe at the University of Toronto, Ontario, and colleagues conclude.

Neck pain is fairly common and usually gets better on its own, but cases that last longer than two months can become chronic, the researchers note in the Journal of Rheumatology. Little scientific information is available on which treatment approaches are most effective, they add.

To investigate, the researchers randomly assigned 151 men and women with chronic neck pain to one of four groups: a control group that received massage and hot or cold packs; a group given the control treatment plus exercise; a group given the control treatment and instructed to sleep with a neck-supporting pillow; and a group given all three treatments.

The neck exercises took 5 to 10 minutes, and involved isometric movements of the head, neck and shoulders. Study participants began by performing the exercises under a trained physiotherapist's supervision and were eventually able to do them on their own at home.

By week 12 of the study, people who used the pillow and exercised reported their neck pain was significantly improved, while there was no improvement among the other three groups.

People in the study had relatively mild pain, so it is possible the findings may not extend to people with severe neck pain due to fibromyalgia, the authors note.