The Effectiveness of Myofascial Trigger Point Treatment in Patients Suffering from Tension-type Headache: A Literature Review

Abstract

Headaches are one of the most common diagnoses in the world. Since the year 2000, people have started to realise what a big issue this is and it could be called one of our times endemic diseases as most people will experience headaches. Tension-type headache (TTH) is the most common type of headache and everyone, regardless of gender and age, is at risk although it is more common in women. The purpose of this literature review is to find out whether trigger point treatment is an effective method for TTH and how we as osteopaths can use this in our practice. We chose to carry out a literature review using the databases Pubmed, Academic Search Elite and Cinahl. We reviewed studies that had accounted for the effect of trigger point treatment in patients suffering from TTH. All studies showed that trigger point treatment using both pressure and positional release by manual therapists are effective treatment methods for TTH. This was because frequency, duration and intensity of TTH all decreased. The number of trigger points were reduced while the tolerance for pain increased in studies where this was examined. The studies we reviewed indicates that there is evidence that support the effect of manual treatment in treating TTH. These results suggest that osteopaths can successfully treat people with TTH.