EFFECTS OF PHYSICAL THERAPY-BASED MANAGEMENT APPROACHES FOR TENSION TYPE HEADACHE

Abstract

Background of the Study: Multiple Physical Therapy approaches have recently been developed and reported in the literature for providing better results in the treatment regimens of tension-type headaches. The advancement in the field of Physical therapy towards the treatment approaches of tension-type headaches has become the driving force for writing this article. Methodology: Studies comparing the effects of physical therapy management with conventional treatment approaches are included in the meta-analysis. PRISMA guidelines were used for performing the qualitative analysis and assessment of risk of biases. Results: According to the findings of nine randomized controlled trials, the analysis of the results had revealed that physical therapy intervention demonstrated a significant improvement in reducing headache severity. In a random effect model, the pool effects of physical therapy strategies in terms of Standardized Mean Difference had an impact of 1.41, which according to a Cohen rule of thumb displays a larger effect of physical therapy management in significant decrease in pain intensity among tension-type headache patients Conclusion: The study has concluded that physical therapy-based management strategies as provided in several RCTs analyzed in this review article revealed a pool effect of moderate size in managing the frequency of pain and a larger effect size in managing pain intensity and duration. Further, it was concluded that tension-type headaches can be effectively managed through physical therapy-based approaches. Keywords: Functional status, parkinson disease, cognitive dysfunction, disease progression, orthostatic hypotension, tremors.