Early Self-Physiotherapy Combined with Conservative Therapy Improves Quality of Life in Myofascial Pain: a Single-Blinded Randomized Controlled Trial

Objective: To compare the mean scores of quality of life in myofascial pain patients treated with conservative therapy alone versus conservative therapy with early self-physiotherapy. Study Design: Single-blinded randomized controlled trial. Trial number (ISRCTN12874881). Place and Duration of Study: Fatima Memorial Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan, from Jul 2021 to Aug 2022. Methodology: A total of 62 patients diagnosed with myofascial pain DC-TMD Group 1(Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders Group) were randomly allocated using a lottery method into two groups: Group A (conservative therapy only) and Group B (conservative therapy with early self-physiotherapy). Written informed consent was taken. The QOL was assessed using a validated QOL index before and after four weeks of therapy. Results: A total of 62 participants were included in this study. Pre-intervention mean score in Group A was 2.53 ± 0.65, which improved to 2.06 ± 0.74 post-intervention. Similarly, Group B showed an improvement from 2.28 ± 0.74 pre-intervention to 1.48 ± 0.75 post-intervention. Both the groups had statistically significant difference pre and post interventions as p value <0.001. There was statistically significant difference seen among the study group at pre intervention as p value =0.003 while after intervention there was not statistically significant difference seen as p-value 0.165Conclusion: Early self-physiotherapy combined with conservative therapy significantly improves the QOL in patients with myofascial pain.