CERVICAL HEADACHE

Headache is a very common symptom experienced by 90% of the population at least once in their lifetime. There can be many causes of headache, out of which cervical headache is the one. Cervical headache originates in the neck or suboccipital region and radiates upwards in the head, more commonly in frontal, temporal and retro orbital region. It can be unilateral or bilateral and can be accompanied by nausea or lightheadedness. In benign cases, there are intermittent bouts of headache with painfree periods in between. It relates more commonly to sustained neck posture, postural stresses, degenerative joint disease or trauma. Accurate diagnosis of cervical headache is a must; it must be differentiated from tension headache and migraine. Often many treatment modalities have been recommended for its cure, physiotherapy is one such treatment for the same.

Gaining full range of painfree motion in the cervical region, with tonically active cervical muscles, deep neck flexors and scapular muscles is the goal of the physiotherapy treatment program. Postural correction is an important component of this program aimed at efficient recruitment of the postural stabilizers and decreasing the activity in other muscles like levator scapulae.