NCT05097300

Treatment of Tension Headache Using Soft Tissue Techniques VS Vagus Stimulation Techniques.

Tratamiento de la Cefalea Tensional Mediante técnicas de Tejido Blando VS técnicas de estimulación Del Vago.

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 42 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Lucia Trullenque Espallargas · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

A treatment based on manual therapy and vagus nerve stimulation is more effective than manual therapy only to reduce frequency, intensity and pressure pain threshold in patients with tension type headache.

Detailed description

Participants will be randomly assigned to two groups: * Experimental group, to which soft tissue techniques and vagus nerve stimulation techniques will be applied. * Control group, to which only soft tissue techniques are applied. Treatment will consist of four sessions, with an interval of seven days between them, for both study groups. Each session with a duration of 20 minutes for both groups. In the control group, treatment using soft techniques will consist of the application of manual techniques that have already been shown to have some efficacy in other studies.

Conditions

• Chronic Tension-Type Headache
• Episodic Tension-Type Headache

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Suboccipital inhibition	The therapist will place his hands under the patient's head, making contact with the suboccipital muscles in the region of the posterior arch of the atlas, applying progressive and deep pressure. This pressure will be maintained for 10 minutes
OTHER	Ischemic pressure	Pressures will be made on the temporal, superior trapezius, masseter and sternocleidomastoid muscles. Physical therapist will apply gradual sustained finger pressure to the muscle's active trigger points for 5-15 seconds. The therapist will begin with light firm pressure and gradually increase the pressure until the patient feels a "moderate but bearable" level of pain (corresponding to a level 7 on a pain scale of 1 to 10 levels where 1 indicates no pain and 10 is excruciating pain). Pressure will remain at this level until pain levels decrease to level 3. The therapist will repeat this procedure approximately 3-4 times over a 90 second period.
OTHER	Passive stretching	Passive stretches will be applied to each muscle 2 times for 30 seconds, they will be performed slowly at the rate of the patient's normal breathing and checking that no compensations appear.
OTHER	Diaphragmatic breathing exercice	To perform diaphragmatic breaths, there will first be an education on how to do them. The patient will lie supine, with the hips and knees semi-flexed. The therapist will ask you to place one hand on your chest and one on your abdomen. Successively, it will ask you to take a few deep breaths, inhaling through your nose for 2 seconds and exhaling through your mouth, with your lips pursed (almost closed) for 4 seconds, helping you to maintain the rhythm of your breath by counting out loud. The patient should note that during inspiration his hand on top of the chest does not rise (the chest remains still) and during expiration that his hand on top of the abdomen goes down (the abdomen sinks).

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-11-01
• Primary completion: 2021-12-01
• Completion: 2021-12-01
• First posted: 2021-10-28
• Last updated: 2021-10-28

Locations

2 sites across 1 country: Spain