COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CRANIOCERVICAL TRAINING

PROGRAMME AND TRIGGER POINT RELEASE THERAPY IN TREATING PATIENTS WITH

TENSION-TYPE HEADACHE
1
Dr.P.Senthil Selvam Ph.D , Divya. R 2

Authors :

1. P.Senthil Selvam – PROFESSOR & HOD, SCHOOL OF PHYSIOTHERAPY, VISTAS (VELS

UNIVERSITY ), CHENNAI.

2. Divya.R- Clinical Therapist, Physiotherapy Clinic, Chennai

Email: hodphysiotherapy@velsuniv.ac.in

ABSTRACT

Background

Tension-type headache is the most prevalent headache type. Almost 80% of the total population

will experience a tension-type headache at some point. Headache is one of the 10 major

complaints of patients seen in primary care practices and 47% of all headaches are tension-type

headaches and is commonly more experienced by female than male in the ratio of 5:4.According

to H Van Ettekoven et al in 2006, Physiotherapy including a Craniocervical Training Progamme

is effective in the management of Chronic and Episodic Tension-type headache over a prolonged

time frame.According to Albert F Moraska et al in 2015, reduction in Myofascial Trigger point

may be an important treatment avenue for addressing Tension-type Headache pain although

contextual factors associated with intervention also contribute to improvement in headache

frequency.Keeping these backgrounds, this study has been done to rule out the level of

effectiveness of Craniocervical Training Programme (CTP) and Trigger Point Release Therapy

by comparing them with their significant results and to provide a better treatment protocol for

patients with tension – type headache.

Methodology

This Study was conducted at a hospital set-up. This experimental study was done over 30 men

& women samples taken through Simple random sampling between the age group of 20 to 60

years

Result

There is a significant result in both Craniocervical Training Programme (p<0.01) and

Trigger Point Release Therapy (p<0.01) through Paired ‘t’ test for NPRS and Wilcoxon ‘T’ test

for HIT – 6 Scale. But, Trigger Point Release Therapy is comparatively much effective than the

Craniocervical Training Programme in accordance with the mean % change in both NPRS and

HIT – 6 Scale.

Conclusion

It was concluded that trigger point release therapy is much effective in comparison with

craniocervical training programme in treating patients with tension – type headache. It was also

found that trigger point release therapy is experimentally statistically significant comparing

craniocervical training programme which shows that its level of effectiveness is comparatively

high.

Keyword

Tension – type headache, Cranio cervical Training Programme (CTP), Trigger Point

Release Therapy, Headache Impact Test (HIT-6) Scale, Theraband