Investigation of the Effectiveness of Dry Needle Treatment Applied to Acupuncture Points in Parkinson's Disease on Pain

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a chronic, progressive, degenerative movement disorder that is characterized by motor and nonmotor symptoms and its incidence increases with age. It is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's.Bradykinesia, which is characterized by rigidity, resting tremor, postural instability, gait disturbance and progressive decrease in the speed and amplitude of repetitive movements throughout the course of the disease, are the main cardinal motor findings.Sensory dysfunction such as non-motor findings in PD, disruption in the sleep-wake cycle, neuropsychiatric findings such as dementia, confusion, hallucinations, delirium, depression, gastrointestinal dysfunction, autonomic nervous system disorders such as bladder dysfunction, orthostatic hypotension, and pain perception may develop.Although dopaminergic therapies in PD are the gold standard in the treatment of disorders such as bradykinesia, rigidity and tremor, adequate response cannot be obtained in the treatment of non-motor symptoms. For this reason, rehabilitative applications, especially pain symptom, and complementary medicine methods are very important.It has been reported that 40-90% of patients have pain symptoms in PD. Pain can be the result of motor fluctuations, dystonic muscle contractions, deep visceral pain, and musculoskeletal pain.

Acupuncture and dry needling therapy have been used clinically for a long time as pain relievers such as migraine pain, low back pain, chronic pain and cancer pain. On the other hand, there are very limited and very limited number of studies on the efficacy of dry needle therapy applied to acupuncture points in pain control in PD.In this study, our aim is to investigate the effectiveness of dry needling treatment applied to acupuncture points in neck pain due to PH on musculoskeletal pains.