Antwon's first summary

Hey guys - my student, Antwon, is spending some time with me as I help him through his Level II fieldwork. He's feeling his way through the more orthopaedic side of what we do, and he decided to look into some dry needling evidence to get a better feel for the targetted nature of muscloskeletal treatment modalities. His summary is below:


A study was conducted to primarily determine whether or not deep dry needling combined with passive stretching was more effective than passive stretching only, in treating pain in people with chronic nonspecific neck pain attributed to myofascial pain syndrome with active myofascial trigger points in their cervical muscles. The secondary aim of the study was to examine the effect of the treatments on mechanical hyperalgesia, neck active range of motion, neck muscle strength, and perceived neck disability. The cervical muscles targeted for deep dry needling of myofascial trigger points included the upper trapezius, levator scapulae, multifidi, and splenius cervicis muscles.


A total of 128 participants completed the intervention, with 64 being a part of the control passive stretching only group, and 64 in the (DDN) deep dry needling and passive stretching group, in which they were randomly assigned to. For the deep dry needling group, of the possible four sessions that would have been applied over a two week period, 12 participants received 3 treatment sessions, 37 participants received 2 sessions, and 3 participants received only 1 session, indicating that the participants reported complete relief of their symptoms and did not require additional sessions. In the case of the control group, 15 participants reported complete relief of neck pain after 2 sessions, while the remaining participants required all four sessions of treatment and did not reach complete recovery of their complaints.


The subjective pain intensity decreased significantly after treatment in both groups, with a larger effect in the DDN group both at the end of the intervention period and at the 6 month follow up. For pressure pain threshold all the muscles except the trapezius showed similar changes over time for each group. The pressure pain threshold of the trapezius muscle showed statistically significant increases after treatment for both groups with a larger effect for the DDN group. Neck active range of motion significantly increased in the DDN group for all movement directions, whereas no significant change was observed for the control group. The DDN group also showed greater improvement of neck muscle strength for all tested directions compared with the control group. Neck disability decreased significantly after treatment in both groups with a larger effect for the DDN group. All the results were clinically meaningful after the intervention and at the 3 and 6 month follow ups for the DDN group as opposed to the control group. Deep dry needling with passive stretching applied to participants with chronic nonspecific neck pain attributed to MPS was associated with better and clinically meaningful results for pain, mechanical hyperalgesia, neck range of motion, neck muscle strength, and neck disability when compared with the passive stretching only control group, both at the completion of the intervention and at 6 month follow up.