Immediate effect of Positional release therapy vs Ischemic compression therapy for gastrocnemius latent trigger point to reduce pain and improve active ankle dorsiflexion in football players: A comparative study

Background: Football is moderate contact sport. Correspondence to FIFA world cup survey, the injuries most frequently affected was lower extremity (65.4%). Maximum injured site was found to be the calf (29.62%). Latent MTP’s are those that are clinically dormant with regards to spontaneous pain and pains only on palpation. Ischemic Compression is the application of progressively strong, painful pressure on trigger point to eliminate the trigger point. On performing ischemic compression, tissue attains recovery by reperfusion thereby relieving transient blood flow occlusion. PRT is indirect and passive treatment also known as strain counter stain therapy which positions the muscle in position of comfort for a period (POC) for 90 seconds while maintaining a sustained manual pressure. Both techniques have been proven to improve pain and ROM Methodology: 38 individuals of 18-30 years having latent trigger point in gastrocnemius were randomly divided between 2 groups included in the study and single intervention of PRT to group 1 and ICT to group 2 was given. Pain and Ankle Dorsiflexion was measured pre and post intervention using VAS and weight bearing lunge test respectively. Results: A significant difference was found in both the groups, for pain VAS score pre intervention is 6.52 and post is 5.39 with p<0.05, ICT (p= 0.0003) for ankle dorsiflexion WBLT score PRT (p= 0.0019) ICT pre intervention is 14.91 and post is 15.73 with p<0.05. A non-significant difference was found between both the groups, for pain VAS score (p= 0.655) for ankle dorsiflexion WBLT score (p= 0.082) Conclusion: There was no statistically significant difference between PRT and ICT and both treatments showed significant improvement in pain and ankle dorsiflexion equally.