Dry Needling, Manual Therapy and Exercise for Neck Pain Management

"Dry needling consists of a skilled intervention which uses a thin filiform needle (as those used in acupuncture) to penetrate the skin and stimulate underlying myofascial trigger points (defined as a hyperirritable spot in skeletal muscle that is associated with a hypersensitive palpable nodule in a taut band which is painful on manual compression and can give rise to characteristic referred pain, referred tenderness, motor dysfunction and autonomic phenomena.)~This intervention will be performed targeting the upper trapezius and cervical multifidus muscles"

Patients will include a supervised therapeutic exercise program in their daily life, based on strengthening exercises for neck muscles.

Patients will receive a manual compression (30 seconds) over myofascial trigger points located at the upper trapezius muscle, scalene muscles and cervical multifidus muscle.

"For the sham DN intervention, a similar approach will be used, but the skin will be not pierced since the material used will be a telescopic Park's sham device.~The guide tube will be pressed against the skin mark and the sham needle will be allowed to drop. The handle will be tapped briskly, but the (blunted) needle tip will not not break the skin."