OBJECTIVE Dry needling of myofascial trigger points can relieve myofascial pain if local twitch responses are elicited during needling. Spontaneous electrical activity (SEA) recorded from an active locus in a myofascial trigger point region has been used to assess the myofascial trigger point sensitivity. This study was to investigate the effect of dry needling on SEA. DESIGN Nine adult New Z...

Myofascial pain syndrome is an important health problem. It affects a majority of the general population, impairs mobility, causes pain, and reduces the overall sense of well-being. Underlying this syndrome is the existence of painful taut bands of muscle that contain discrete, hypersensitive foci called myofascial trigger points. In spite of the significant impact on public health, a clear mec...

BACKGROUND Infrared thermography is recognized as a viable method for evaluation of subjects with myofascial pain. OBJECTIVE The aim of the present study was to assess the intra- and inter-rater reliability of infrared image analysis of myofascial trigger points in the upper trapezius muscle. METHOD A reliability study was conducted with 24 volunteers of both genders (23 females) between 18...

OBJECTIVE To apply ultrasound (US) imaging techniques to better describe the characteristics of myofascial trigger points (MTrPs) and the immediately adjacent soft tissue. DESIGN Four sites in each patient were labeled based on physical examination as active myofascial trigger points (A-MTrPs; spontaneously painful), latent myofascial trigger points (L-MTrPs; nonpainful), or normal myofascial...

Myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) is described as the muscle, sensory, motor, and autonomic nervous system symptoms caused by stimulation of myofascial trigger points (MTP). The participation of fascia in this syndrome has often been neglected. Several manual and physical approaches have been proposed to improve myofascial function after traumatic injuries, but the processes that induce pathologic...

Myofascial trigger point pain is an extremely prevalent cause of persistent pain disorders in all parts of the body, not just the head, neck, and face. Features include deep aching pain in any structure, referred from focally tender points in taut bands of skeletal muscle (the trigger points). Diagnosis depends on accurate palpation with 2-4 kg/cm2 of pressure for 10 to 20 seconds over the susp...

Purpose: This study investigated the effect of myofascial release in relieving the symptoms of Chronic Tension Type Headache (CTTH) Methods: The study used a convenience sampling pretest-post test design. 31 people (7 men and 24 women, age range 18-58 years, mean age 32 years) with CTTH participated in the study. The headache sample was screened for MTrP in the cranial and pericranial muscles a...

RATIONALE Muscle pain can be elicited by any irritation of the nociceptors in the muscle or central sensitization in the central nervous system. The most frequently described muscle pain syndromes are myofascial pain syndrome and fibromyalgia syndrome. Myofascial pain syndrome has a more localized manifestation, the trigger points. OBJECTIVE If there is a correlation between the clinical find...