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Dry Needling at the Thoracolumbar Junction on Measures of Sympathetic Outflow and Flexibility

NCT03630172 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 54

Last updated 2019-08-28

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Dry needling (DN) is becoming more frequently performed by physical therapists around the world to treat musculoskeletal pain. Dry needling is a form of trigger point therapy that evolved from using injections of local anesthetics. Although dry needling is becoming more commonly used, there is little agreement on how it works. Researchers have focused their efforts investigating other forms of manual therapy until very recently. To date, no studies have looked at how dry needling effects muscles distant from the area being treated. Most of the body's sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight response) is located in the thoracic spine, it may be a "silent" contributor to musculoskeletal problems in the arms and legs. The purpose of this study is to determine how dry needling the thoracolumbar junction affects pain, flexibility, and other non-invasive measures of nervous system output in people who have low back pain and tightness of their hamstring muscles. Standard dry needling treatment will be compared with a placebo. The investigators hypothesize that dry needling will have a greater sympathetic nervous system response, as measured by changes in heart rate, skin temperature and skin conductance, when compared with the placebo. The investigators also hypothesize that dry needling will have a greater positive effect on flexibility of the low back and hamstring muscles when compared to the placebo.

Conditions

  • Low Back Pain

Interventions

PROCEDURE

Dry needling

Using a thin, filiform needle to penetrate a muscle and its trigger point to produce a local twitch response

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Nova Southeastern University

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Nicole G Clark, MSPT · Nova Southeastern University

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
QUADRUPLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
70 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2018-09-15
Primary Completion
2019-08-10
Completion
2019-08-10

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT03630172 on ClinicalTrials.gov