| خلاصه مقاله | Introduction: Spasticity is a common motor symptom in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). This impairment may affect other functions such as balance, ambulation, walking, and subsequent disabilities. There are various therapeutic interventions to reduce spasticity. As a novel approach, dry needling can be applied to improve symptoms in these patients. Thus, we reviewed recent published researches to investigate the short- and long-term effects of dry needling on muscle spasticity and pain in patients with MS.
Method: PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane, Google Scholar, and ProQuest were searched. Eligible randomized controlled trials in patients with MS that were treated with dry needling since 2018 to 2021 were included. Physiotherapy, Dry needling, Multiple Sclerosis, Pain, and Spasticity were used as key words.
Result: Eight studies met the inclusion criteria and were divided based on outcome measures. 5 studies assessed short-term effects of dry needling to decrease pain and spasticity in MS. While the rest of the studies evaluated long-term effects of dry needling on spasticity and pain in patients with MS.
Conclusion: Moderate evidence suggests a short term positive effect of dry needling on spasticity and pain in MS patients. But the long term effects on spasticity and pain are inconclusive. Since, dry needling could be considered as a useful and feasible complementary intervention, within a multimodal approach in the patients, more high-quality trials investigating long-term effects and evaluating the other aspects of this technique such as treatment region, frequency, and duration are clearly needed. |