Muscle Strength in Shoulder and Neck Muscles in Tension Type Headache Patients. Effect of Specific Strength Training

Muscle Strength in Shoulder and Neck Muscles in Adult Tension Type Headache Patients, and the Effect of Specific Strength Training

Background:

Tension Type Headache (TTH) is highly frequent and is of great socio-economic importance. Andersen et al. 2008 has shown that maximal muscle strength is reduced in women with trapezius myalgia. It is shown that specific strength training leads to prolonged pain relief.

Aim:Test: To investigate the impact of TTH on shoulder, and neck muscle strength in patients with TTH compared to healthy controls.

Intervention: To investigate the effect of specific strength training on patients with TTH compared with control group, receiving training in ergonomics.

Method: Test part. 60 tension headache patients, 30 healthy. Muscle testing of neck and shoulder. Testing conducted by blinded research assistant.

Intervention group: 60 patients with tension headache randomly assigned to the intervention group or control group. Intervention with specific strength training program runs for 10 weeks. The control group will be trained in ergonomics. 3 months follow up.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Tension-type headache(TTH), inclusion criteria were age between 18 and 65 years and for patients a diagnosis of TTH ≥8 headache days per month, and ≤3 migraine days per month according to ICHD-II -criteria.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Exclusion criteria were medication overuse headache (ICHD-II), previous whiplash or head trauma, other major physical or neurological diseases, depression, other mental illness, or being unable to understand and speak Danish. The patients were tested for cervicogenic headache according to Jull, et al 2007, and were excluded if the test was positive.