The effect of dry needling in tendons of forearm extensors to examine the amount of force grip, pain and functional ability in athletes with chronic tennis elbow

Dry needling is a none invasive and cheap method with the effect of treatment in less time, so it seems to be a better way for treatment of athletes with chronic tennis elbow syndrome to decrease duration and costs of treatment. Type of this study is randomized clinical trial. The inclusion criteria is 44 athletes (age 18-40) with three sessions per week, each session at least six hours of practice or race that diagnosed with tennis elbow syndrome which is lasting more than 3 months. The exclusion criteria is the history of fractures or dislocations in the past year; the history of surgery in the past six months; degenerative changes and untreated infections or tumors in shoulder or elbow and needle phobia. The first group takes physical therapy treatments include ultrasound ( continuous, 1 W, 5 minutes) at origin of extensor muscles of forearm and fingers, friction massage for 5 minutes and strengthening with stretching exercises. The second group takes physical therapy along with dry needling. The duration of treatment is three week, three sessions per week. At the beginning of treatment, second and third week and also at the end of third week athletes should fill out the evaluation form for elbow area and grip strength test will be performed. These steps repeat at the end of fourth week as follow up. It seems both methods of treatments will change the amount of pain, function and grip strength of athletes with but our hypothesis is that using dry needling along with physical therapy will be more effective.

Vice President of Research of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences