Journal of bodywork and movement therapies
-
We would like to welcome Dr. Li-Wei Chou, MD, PhD as our newly appointed contributing author. Dr. ⋯ Several basic studies shed further light on the nature of myofascial pain, myalgia, fascia and examination techniques, such as sonoelastography. Neuroimaging studies demonstrated microstructural abnormalities in brain gray matter of chronic myofascial pain patients, which is an important new finding. As usual, many manual TrP papers and DN papers were published in the past several months.
-
Numerous techniques have been employed to treat myofascial pain syndrome. Self-myofascial release (SMFR) is a relatively new technique of soft tissue mobilization. The simplicity and portability of the SMFR tools allow it to be easily implemented in any type of fitness or rehabilitation program. It is an active method and can be used by anyone at home or at the workplace. ⋯ During the past decade, therapists and fitness professionals have implemented SMFR mainly via foam rolling as a recovery or maintenance tool. Researchers observed a significant increase in the joint range of motion after using the SMFR technique and no decrease in muscle force or changes in performance after treatment with SMFR. SMFR has been widely used by health-care professionals in treating myofascial pain. However, we found no clinical trials which evaluated the influence of SMFR on myofascial pain. There is an acute need for these trials to evaluate the efficacy and effectiveness of SMFR in the treatment of the myofascial syndrome.
-
Due to a change in the production schedule of this journal, two issues of this article were due within a month of each other, which precluded the usual group of authors from contributing to the current paper, but they will participate in this review in the next issue. This overview includes several articles questioning the use of dry needling (DN) by non-acupuncturists, which continues to be a controversial topic especially in the United States. ⋯ The results were mixed and not necessarily consistent among studies. The research of the clinical management of TrPs is still limited, because of small sample sizes, insufficient power, the inherent risk of the introduction of bias, and poor study methodologies.
-
Clinical Trial
Neurophysiological and clinical effects of dry needling in patients with upper trapezius myofascial trigger points.
Dry needling (DN) is a widely used in treatment of myofascial trigger points (MTrPs). The purpose of this pretest-posttest clinical trial was to investigate the neurophysiological and clinical effects of DN in patients with MTrPs. ⋯ A single session of DN to the active upper trapezius MTrP was effective in improving pain, PPT, NMJR, and SSR in patients with myofascial trigger points. Further studies are needed.