Manual therapies for pain relief in patients with headache

a systematic review

Abstract

Objective. This systematic review aimed to assess the efficacy of manual therapies for headache relief. Method. A systematic search in MEDLINE, LILACS, Cochrane, CINAHL, Scopus and Web of Sci­ence databases was conducted for randomized and quasi-randomized trials, with no restrictions for language or year of publication. The de­scriptors were ‘Headache’, ‘Headache disorders’ and ‘Musculoskeletal manipulations’, in addition to the keyword ‘Manual therapy’ and its equivalents in Portuguese. We included studies that compared mas­sage, chiropractic manipulation, osteopathic manipulation and other spinal manipulation to groups with no intervention, other physiother­apeutic modalities or to a sham group. Results. Seven of the 567 ar­ticles initially screened were selected, including patients with tension type headache, cervicogenic headache or migraine. It was not possible to assess the magnitude of the treatment effect on the findings of this review. The main limitations were the absence of randomization and adequate allocation concealment, the lack of blinded evaluators and intention-to-treat analysis and inadequate statistical analysis. Conclu­sions. We were unable to determine the size of the treatment effect due to the selective description of findings. Owing to the high risk of bias in the articles included, the available evidence regarding the ef­ficacy of manual therapies for headache relief is insufficient.