[Effectiveness of physiotherapeutic treatment interventions on pain intensity, duration, frequency, and quality of life of patients with migraine : A systematic review].

A team of researchers looked at whether physiotherapy can help people with migraine by searching for high-quality studies published through mid-2021. They found 13 randomized controlled trials involving 595 adults and examined what happened when they received different types of physiotherapy, including things like joint mobilization, trigger point work, massage, and stretching. Every intervention they looked at showed improvements compared to how patients started out, but the treatments that combined several techniques together produced results that felt clinically meaningful.

The researchers concluded that multimodal physiotherapy, meaning a layered approach mixing different methods, looks like it could work well alongside medication for migraine, though they also flagged that many of the studies they reviewed had quality issues and better research is needed to be confident.

Researchers wanted to know whether physiotherapy techniques might help people living with migraine, so they gathered all the best available studies from the past several years. What they found is that different types of hands-on and movement-based treatments did seem to reduce pain, shorten how long migraines lasted, and lower how often they happened, plus they appeared to improve quality of life.

The good news is that when physiotherapists combined several techniques together, rather than using just one approach, the results looked more meaningful and noticeable. It is worth knowing that the studies they reviewed weren't all perfect in design, so while the pattern of improvement is encouraging, scientists are asking for more research that meets stricter standards.

This suggests that physiotherapy might be worth exploring as part of a broader approach to managing migraine, though exactly what will work best for any one person is individual.

This is a summary of research, not medical advice. Talk to your own healthcare provider about anything affecting your care.

This systematic review pulled together 13 RCTs totalling 595 participants to examine whether physiotherapy interventions can shift pain parameters and quality of life in migraine populations. The interventions ranged across manual techniques, mobilization, trigger point therapy, and stretching protocols, with all showing positive change from baseline.

A key finding is that multimodal physiotherapy programs, combining several modalities, produced clinically relevant effects rather than isolated techniques. The overall quality picture is mixed, though: four studies carried high bias risk, two were low-risk, and seven had some concerns, which means the confidence level sits somewhere between preliminary support and moderate evidence.

The authors suggest physiotherapy deserves a role in preventive migraine management alongside pharmacological approaches, but they were explicit that higher-quality RCTs are needed before broad claims about effectiveness can be made.