RxPG News : Tension Headache

Tai Chi may help alleviate tension headaches

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 12:18:33 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) FINDINGS: Researchers found that Tai Chi, a traditional Chinese low-impact mind-body exercise, provided significant health benefits for adults suffering from tension headaches. Compared with a control group, patients who participated in a 15-week Tai Chi program were helped not only with headache pain, but also perceived improvement in other areas, reporting increased energy, emotional well-being, social functioning and improved mental health.

IMPACT: According to researchers, Tai Chiâs emphasis on relaxation, breathing and coordination may address stress, the underlying cause of the pain associated with tension headaches. The patients who participated in the Tai Chi program showed improvement on a quality-of-life based measurement called SF-36 and also on a test called HIT-6TM designed to capture the effect of headaches.

AUTHORS: Ryan B. Abbott, M.T.O.M, L.Ac., UCLA Center for East-West Medicine and Dr. Ka-Kit Hui, Wallis Annenberg Professor in Integrative East-West Medicine and director of the UCLA Center for East-West Medicine are available for interviews.

FUNDING: The study was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health and various foundations.

JOURNAL: The research appears in the March 2007 issue of the journal, Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (eCAM).

Tension Headache May Actually Be TMJD

Mon, 15 May 2006 17:28:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) People whose recurrent headaches have been diagnosed as tension-related actually may be suffering from temporomandibular muscle and joint disorder, or TMJD, a study headed by a researcher from the University at Buffalo's School of Dental Medicine has shown.

Results showed that examiners could replicate tension-headache symptoms in 82 percent of subjects by performing the clinical examination of the temporalis muscle, which is involved in TMJD.

Richard Ohrbach, D.D.S., Ph.D., UB associate professor in the Department of Oral Diagnostic Sciences, presented the study results at the American Association of Dental Research meeting held recently in Orlando, Fla.

The temporalis muscle is responsible for closing the jaw and is involved in chewing, but these core functions of that pair of muscles often are ignored when the presenting complaint is "headache," as opposed to jaw pain, Ohrbach said.

"Because headache is so incredibly common, it often is regarded as inevitable, and if sufferers label the pain as 'headache,' they may not seek help," he said. "Or if they do seek help, the label of 'headache' typically will propel the individual to a physician or neurologist for consultation.

"Knowledge about the intersection between jaw pain and headache is not well established, and consequently, jaw pain may be ignored in the differential diagnosis," Ohrbach added. "This can be most unfortunate for the individual, because TMJD can be very treatable, but if a jaw disorder is ignored, then treatment for the headache may not address all of the factors contributing to the headache."

The current study is part of an $8 million project to establish valid and reliable TMJD diagnostic criteria. Results will advance the field of TMJD research and aid clinicians in their practices.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota and the University of Washington, in addition to UB, are involved in the project.

An estimated 5-10 percent of the U.S. population suffer from TMJD severe enough to warrant treatment. These patients experience debilitating pain that can destroy quality of life. Diagnosing the disorder is problematic, however, due to overlap with other conditions, Ohrbach said.

TMJD usually involves more than a single symptom, rarely has a single cause and frequently involves multiple factors, including behavioral and emotional responses. Lacking a firm set of diagnostic tools, physicians and dentists often depend on their individual judgment to decide if a patient does or does not have the disorder, he noted.

The diagnostic criteria for TMJD being tested in this project are part of the established Research Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders (RDC/TMD). Headache diagnosis is based on the International Headache Society (IHS) guidelines. All examiners were been trained to use the "gold-standard" criteria for tension-type headache established by the IHS.

The study compared the diagnostic procedures for pain and the reproduction of "pain" vs. "headache" during the clinical examination. Procedures included a range of functional and orthopedic tests and standard pain sensitivity to pressure applied to the muscles associated with headache. The types of headaches considered included sub-clinical headaches, tension-type headaches and headaches exhibiting more symptoms than are accepted for tension-type headaches, such as the "mixed headache," migraine or "migraine-type" headaches

The study involved 583 participants -- 82.3 percent female and 17.7 percent male -- who were recruited as cases from the community based on the presence of symptoms clearly associated with TMJD. Based on IHS criteria, 31.5 percent, or 152 participants, were diagnosed with tension-type headache by the examiners.

Tension headaches - Don't ignore this differential diagnosis

Sun, 14 May 2006 18:42:37 PST

Acupuncture cuts tension headache rates by almost half

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 14:44:38 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Acupuncture is an effective treatment for tension headache, cutting rates for sufferers by almost half, shows a study on bmj.com this week.

And a minimal acupuncture course works almost as well as traditional Chinese therapy, say the researchers.

In a randomised controlled trial - the gold standard of clinical trials - researchers in Germany divided 270 patients with a similar severity of tension headache into three groups.

Over an eight week period one set were treated with traditional acupuncture, one with minimal acupuncture (needles inserted only superficially into the skin, at non-acupuncture points), and one group had neither treatment (control group).

Those receiving traditional acupuncture care saw their headache rates drop by almost half - suffering 7 days less headaches over the four weeks following the treatment. Those receiving minimal acupuncture had 6.6 less days of headaches. While the control group experienced 1.5 less days of headaches - a drop of just a tenth.

Improvements to headache rates continued for months after the acupuncture treatment, though they began to rise slightly as time went on.

Those in the no treatment group were subsequently given acupuncture for eight weeks after the main study period. These patients also improved significantly after the treatment, though not to the same level as those given acupuncture initially.

Of the 195 patients in the acupuncture groups, 37 reported some side effects - the most common being dizziness, other headaches and bruising.

Such a small difference in results between traditional and minimal acupuncture treatments seems to indicate that the location of acupuncture points and other aspects of traditional Chinese acupuncture do not make a major difference for tension headache, say the authors.

Acupuncture treatments are sometimes associated with strong placebo effects, caution the authors. But these findings show that acupuncture produces just as good improvements for tension headache sufferers as treatments already accepted, they conclude.