ABSTRACT

Background: Cervicogenic headache is a chronic, non-throbbing pain condition that is triggered by uncomfortable head positions and neck movements.

Objective: To determine the effect of reverse headache sustained natural apophyseal glide (SNAG) with conventional treatment versus conventional treatment to reduce pain, improve range of motion and reduced functional limitation on patients with cervicogenic headache.

Materials and Methods: A randomized controlled trial was conducted on a sample of 30 patients with cervicogenic headache, included through non- probability purposive sampling technique. They were randomly divided into two groups through lottery method. Conventional treatment (hot pack and METs) was used as baseline treatment. Group A received reverse headache SNAG with conventional treatment and group B received only conventional treatment. Total treatment protocol was of 12 treatment session with 3 sessions per week for consecutive 4 weeks. Data was collected at baseline and after 4^th week by using outcome measuring tools which were numeric pain rating scale (NPRS) for pain, headache disability index (HDI) and cervical flexion and rotation test (CFRT), for functional disability and mobility respectively. Duration of study was 4 months.

Results: The result of Mann-whitney test of this study shows there was significant difference in means and S.D of the pre and post numerical pain rating scale score, and the independent T test also shows there was significant difference in means and S.D of the pre and post of HDI and CFRT. According to the p value which was (0.000) of the study which was less than 0.05 there was significant difference in both groups.

Conclusion: Reverse headache SNAG along with conventional treatment were effective to improve the cervicogenic headache. The reverse headache SNAG reduces pain; improve function and ROM more as compared to conventional treatment.

Keywords: Cervicogenic headache, Conventional treatment, Reverse headache Sustained Natural Apophyseal Glide.