La Salle Centro Universitario, Madrid, Spain.
School of Nursing, Physiotherapy and Podiatry, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Pain Physician. 2021 Mar;24(2):135-143.
Percutaneous nerve electrical stimulation is a novel treatment modality for the management of acute and chronic myofascial pain syndrome.
To compare the effectiveness of dry needling combined with percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation of low frequency versus high frequency, in patients with chronic myofascial neck pain.
Randomized, single-blind trial.
Laboratory in an academic institution.
A total of 40 volunteer patients with chronic neck pain were randomly divided into 2 groups. All patients initially received deep dry needling in a myofascial trigger point of the upper trapezius. Then, one group received high frequency percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation while the other group received low frequency percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation. The primary outcomes were the visual analog scale and the pressure pain threshold, while Neck Disability Index and Kinesiophobia were secondary outcomes.
We detected significant improvements in the visual analog scale score in both groups without differences between them. We did not observe significantly different statistics in either group during the evaluation of data on pressure pain threshold.
Limitations of the study include (1) heterogeneity of the sample in relation to gender, with more women, (2) the small sample size (40 patients), (3) the absence of placebo group, and (4) the fact that the treatment is focused exclusively on the upper trapezium myofascial trigger point. .
Low and high frequency percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation combined with deep dry needling showed similar effects, since no differences between groups were observed on any of the outcome measures. High and low frequency of percutaneous electrical nerve stimulation generates changes on pain intensity and disability, but not on pressure pain threshold or fear of movement.
经皮神经电刺激是一种治疗急性和慢性肌筋膜疼痛综合征的新方法。
比较低频与高频电神经刺激结合干针治疗慢性颈肌筋膜疼痛的疗效。
随机、单盲试验。
学术机构的实验室。
共 40 名志愿者慢性颈痛患者被随机分为两组。所有患者最初均接受上斜方肌肌筋膜触发点深部干针治疗。然后，一组接受高频经皮电神经刺激，另一组接受低频经皮电神经刺激。主要结果是视觉模拟评分和压痛阈值，而颈部残疾指数和运动恐惧是次要结果。
我们发现两组的视觉模拟评分都有显著改善，且两组之间没有差异。我们在评估压力疼痛阈值数据时，在任何一组中都没有观察到统计学上的显著差异。
本研究的局限性包括（1）与性别相关的样本异质性，女性较多，（2）样本量小（40 例），（3）缺乏安慰剂组，（4）治疗仅集中在上斜方肌肌筋膜触发点。
低频和高频经皮电神经刺激结合深部干针治疗的效果相似，因为在任何结局指标上两组之间均未观察到差异。高频和低频经皮电神经刺激可改变疼痛强度和残疾程度，但不能改变压痛阈值或运动恐惧。
