Comparison of Short Term Outcomes Between Dry Needling and Manual Therapy on Upper Trapezius Trigger Points

Background: Myofascial pain syndrome is considered as the most common source of neck pain in skeletal muscles which become a cause of chronic neck pain. In the neck region trapezius is most commonly affected by Myofascial trigger points. Objective: To compare the effects of trigger point dry needling and trigger point manual therapy of trigger points of upper trapezius muscle. Methodology: It was a randomized control; single blinded clinical trial was conducted from 5th September to 3rd October 2016 from Clinical Facility of Women Institute of Rehabilitation Sciences, Abbottabad. Purposive sampling technique was used for sample selection. After taking consent from patients, 30 patients with neck pain and active MTrPs were divided randomly in two groups through lottery method. Group A was treated with dry needling, group B was treated only with manual therapy. Research data was recorded at the first visit and 4th week by using prescribed validated questionnaire, NPRS, NDI and cervical ROMs with Inclinometer. Results: Among 30 participants 16 were male and 14 were female having overall mean age was 35.75±7.63. Within the group analysis the pain and disability were shows statically significant having P value less than P < .001. There were no significantly differences at base line values show that the data was made uniform. The final result showed that the dry needling group significantly improves the pain and functional status of the patient. Conclusion: It is concluded that both groups showed improvement during the follow up period. But, dry needling group showed significant results than manual therapy group in terms of reduction pain and improving function of the patients.