Efficacy of osteopathic manipulative therapy in cases of tension headaches

Abstract

Tension headache is one of the most frequent and disabling medical conditions. It affects 15% of the general population, generating high global socio-economic costs, and the currently available treatment options are inadequate. Despite the existence of previous reviews, an update is considered necessary to offer the most current vision possible of the physiotherapy approach to tension headache. The objectives of this study were to check the efficacy of manipulative therapy in patients with tension headache, highlight the choice of manipulative therapy over other physiotherapy and pharmacological treatments and dismiss the use of anti-inflammatory pharmacology, before manipulative therapy. A search was conducted for systematic review articles and studies carried out during the period 2010-2020, in the PubMed Central and Google Academy. For the article search, we used keywords such as tension headache, manipulative osteopathic treatment, neck pain, neck pain. Articles that refer to both vertebral and cranial manipulation were included. Most of the studies consulted were systematic reviews, comparative studies, or pilot tests. The articles reviewed support the notion that patients with tension headache may benefit from manipulative osteopathic treatment. It was possible to corroborate that manipulative osteopathic treatment reduces the frequency and intensity of headaches, as well as having longer results and without adverse effects when faced with pharmacological treatment. The results of this systematic review show that there is sufficient scientific evidence in favor of the application of manipulative osteopathic treatment for the management of tension headache, without rejecting more conventional techniques, such as elongation and massage therapy.