Comparing the Effectiveness of Dry Needling and Ischemic Compression Technique on Muscle Thickness and Health Related Quality of Life in Trigger Point Tension Type Headache

The research aims to compare the effectiveness of Dry Needling and Ischemic Compression Technique on muscle thickness & health related quality of life in trigger point related tension type headache. Headaches are the major health concern as one of the prevalent type of all symptoms in the worldwide population and are the cause of disabilities and hindrance in productivity of an individual.

The treatment approaches performed for trigger point related tension type headache are non-specific, vigorous, time consuming and costly. It is due to the inaccurate location of the trigger points present in cervical musculature. The studies related to comparison of specific treatment procedures to treat trigger point related tension type headaches such as dry needling and Ischemic Compression technique with the knowledge of accurate location of trigger points present in cervical musculature are lacking in Pakistani population. Hence the current study is aimed to determine the effect of dry needling and Ischemic Compression technique with the use of diagnostic ultrasound on muscle thickness, pain and health related quality of life in Trigger point related tension type headache. The study will be conducted on the tension type headache diagnosed individuals aged 20 to 50 years of age, at Physical Therapy OPD of Saifee and Ziauddin Hospital with the help of envelope method as a randomization technique. Dry needling will be performed on Group A whereas Group B will be given Ischemic Compression technique on trigger points diagnosed by Musculoskeletal Ultrasound. Patient's headache, muscle thickness and health related quality of life will be assessed by Numeric Pain rating scale, Musculoskeletal Ultrasound and Short Form-36 Questionnaire respectively. If the data will be found to be normally distributed, Pair T-test will be run for with the group analysis. Between the groups an alysis will be perform by Independent t test. In case data found to be deviated from the assumption of normal distribution, Paired T-test will be replaced by Wilcoxon test and Independent T test will be replaced by Mann Whitney U Test. The level of significance will be kept at 95% alpha-0.05.