Effectiveness of Dry Needling in Chronic Neck Pain.

Objectives: To investigate the effect of combining real or placebo dry needling with therapeutic exercise in self-reported pain, pressure pain sensitivity, neck disability, global rating of change (GROC) scale, muscle viscoelastic properties (muscle tone and stiffness) and left/right discrimination ability in adults with chronic non-specific neck pain. Design: Quantitative, experimental, longitudinal, prospective, and single blinded study. Subjects: Participants aged between 18 and 60 years, and with non specific neck pain of at least 3 months of evolution. Methods: Participants will be randomly allocated in four groups: a) isolated use of a home based therapeutic exercise (TE) program (TE Group); b) combination of the exercise program and the use of deep dry needling (DN) in neck shoulder muscles with active or latent myofascial trigger points (MTrPs) in order to elicit local twitch responses (LTR) (TE + local DN Group); c) therapeutic exercise combined with DN applied distally from the muscle areas with MTrPs and, therefore, without, eliciting LTRs (TE + distal DN Group); and d) therapeutic exercise program combined with placebo DN (TE + placebo DN Group).