The results of connective tissue manipulation in the treatment of tension type headache

Connective tissue manipulation (CTM) is a manual therapy which stimulates responses of the autonomic nervous system and corrects the changes in skin, underlying connective tissue and muscle. The purpose of this study was to determine the results of CTM in the treatment of tension type headache (TTH). CTM was applied to 20 TTH patients for a total of 20 treatments in four weeks. Before the treatment, all subjects were evaluated retrospectively for pain intensity (using visual analogue scale), duration and frequency, analgesic usage and accompanying symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, sleep disorders, muscle tenderness and the presence of connective tissue tension. It was observed that there was a significant decrease in pain intensity, duration and frequency (p < 0.05) at the end of 6 months follow-up period. In addition, we observed an improvement in the accompanying symptoms. It can be concluded that, because CTM reduces the drug overuse in TTH patients, it can be used as a non-pharmacological approach in the treatment of TTH.