Post by Lauren on May 6, 2016 17:05:03 GMT
I reviewed Dunning et al.'s article comparing cervical and thoracic manipulation and mobilization plus exercise for patients with cervicogenic headache. The article link and review are below.
I thought the article was well done. Previous studies have compared mobilization and manipulation for neck pain, but this was the first one (as far as I know) addressing cervicogenic headache. They found that the manipulation group had better outcomes (pain, NDI, headache frequency, headache duration, and medication intake) than the mobilization and exercise group. However, both groups showed clinical improvement in all outcomes. Follow up was at one week, 4 weeks, and 3 months. There was no true control group. Patients included in the study had to have a headache frequency of at least once a week for a minimum of 3 months. I could not find up upper time limit identified and wonder if outcomes would differ with a more chronic population. This study supports the idea that patients with cervicogenic headache could benefit more from manipulation than mobilization, as long as they were appropriate from manipulation. However, mobilization and exercise is still an effective intervention for patients who are not appropriate for manipulation. It would be interesting to see if adding exercise to the manipulation group would change the results at all. I would also like to see what long term follow up beyond 3 months looks like.
thoracic article review.docx (31.51 KB)