ABSTRACT

Introduction: Neck pain is a significant socio-economic burden as it is a common cause of seeking help within the health system and reduces the quality of life of such patients. The presence of myofascial trigger points in the muscles of the neck region may be the cause of such pain. One of the techniques used by physiotherapists in the treatment of myofascial pain, including neck pain, is dry needling or dry puncture.

Aim: The aim is to establish the effectiveness of dry needling in the treatment of cervical pain associated with myofascial trigger points.

Materials and methods: methods:The Medline database (PubMed) was searched using the key words dry needling and neck pain, and dry needling and cervical pain, and the Croatian Scientific Bibliography-Bibliographic Database using the key words dry needling and suha punkcija. Eight papers were selected by analysis of complete texts.

Results: A review of the available literature shows that the use of dry needling for neck pain is effective in reducing pain and other measured parameters, although the level of evidence for the conclusions reached is low to moderate.

Conclusion: There is a visible need for quality research that would offer a higher level of evidence on the effectiveness of this technique.

Key words: dry needling, neck pain, cervical pain, trigger points0