Effectiveness of Diacutaneous Fibrolysis in Painful Shoulder

Summary

While Diacutaneous fibrolysis (DF) has achieved promising results empirically, its effectiveness has not been tested in clinical trials. The investigators hypothesized that the use of DF in patients suffering from painful shoulder would increase the active mobility and reduce the pain during movement. To test the hypothesis a double blind (patient and investigator) randomized clinical trial was carried out in two public Primary Health Care Centres. Fifty patients were randomly allocated to two groups: the intervention group, who received a real DF session, and the control group, who received a placebo DF session.

Conditions

• Shoulder Pain

Interventions

OTHER

Diacutaneous Fibrolysis

The implementation of the technique consists of three consecutive stages: The first stage involves manual palpation, which is carried out by the hand that is not holding the hook, with the objective to find the area to be treated; the second, or instrumental palpation stage, is carried out by introducing the spatula of the hook together with the index finger of the palpatory hand to locate with precision the adherent connective fibers or fibrous corpuscles; the third, or fibrolysis stage, is the actual treatment. Here, a brief supplementary traction is carried out with the hook.

OTHER

Diacutaneous Fibrolysis (placebo)

The placebo was designed for this study and the stages of manual and instrumental palpation occur strictly at a superficial level. In the third stage, instead of fibrolysis a pinch of skin is hold with the thumb of the palpatory hand and the tip of the spatula, so that the patient feels the hook distinctly but without any action taking place on the deep tissular planes.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Fundacio d'Investigacio en Atencio Primaria Jordi Gol i Gurina

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Martín-Eusebio Barra-López, PT · Catalan Institute of Health

• Carlos López-de-Celis, DO, PT · Catalan Institute of Health

• Gabriela Fernández-Jentsch, PT · Servicio Gallego de Salud

• Ernesto Murillo-Barrios, PT · Servicio Gallego de Salud

• Edurne Villar-Mateo, PT · Catalan Institute of Health

• Laura Raya-de-Cardenas, PT · Catalan Institute of Health

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2007-06-30

Primary Completion

2008-01-31

Completion

2008-01-31

Countries

• Spain

Study Locations