Effectiveness of manual therapy in the treatment of cervicogenic headache: A systematic review

The aim of this study was to identify the manual therapy (MT) methods and techniques that have been evaluated for the treatment of cervicogenic headache (CH) and their effectiveness.

MT seems to be one of the options with the greatest potential for the treatment of CH, but the techniques to be applied are varied and there is no consensus on which are the most indicated.

A systematic search in Scopus, Medline, PubMed, Cinahl, PEDro, and Web of Science with the terms: secondary headache disorders, physical therapy modalities, musculoskeletal manipulations, cervicogenic headache, manual therapy, and physical therapy. We included articles published from 2015 to the present that studied interventions with MT techniques in patients with CH. Two reviewers independently screened 365 articles for demographic information, characteristics of study design, study-specific intervention, and results. The Oxford 2011 Levels of Evidence and the Jadad scale were used.

Of a total of 14 articles selected, 11 were randomized control trials and three were quasi-experimental studies. The techniques studied were: spinal manipulative therapy, Mulligan's Sustained Natural Apophyseal Glides, muscle techniques, and translatory vertebral mobilization. In the short-term, the Jones technique on the trapezius and ischemic compression on the sternocleidomastoid achieved immediate improvements, whereas adding spinal manipulative therapy to the treatment can maintain long-term results.

The manual therapy techniques could be effective in the treatment of patients with CH. The combined use of MT techniques improved the results compared with using them separately. This review has methodological limitations, such as the inclusion of quasi-experimental studies and studies with small sample sizes that reduced the generalizability of the results obtained.