Pain ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE Efficacy of Pulsed and Continuous Therapeutic Ultrasound in Myofascial Pain Syndrome A Randomized Controlled Study ABSTRACT Ilter L, Dilek B, Batmaz I, Ulu MA, Sariyildiz MA, Nas K, Cevik R: Efficacy of pulsed and continuous therapeutic ultrasound in myofascial pain syndrome: a randomized controlled study. Am J Phys Med Rehabil 2014;00:00Y00. Objectives: This study aimed to compare continuous and pulsed ultrasound therapy with sham ultrasound in terms of pain, severity of muscle spasm, function, depression, and quality of life in patients with myofascial pain syndrome. Design: Patients were randomly divided into three groups, including the con- tinuous ultrasound group (3 MHz, 1 W/cm 2 , n = 20), the pulsed ultrasound group (3 MHz, 1 W/cm 2 , 1:1 ratio, n = 20), and control group (sham, n = 20). The primary outcome measures were severity of pain at rest and during activity (visual analog scale, 0Y10 cm). The secondary outcome measures were function (Neck Pain and Disability Scale), depressive mood (Beck Depression Scale), and quality of life (Nottingham Health Profile). All evaluations were performed at baseline, after treatment, and at the 6th and 12th wks. Results: All three groups had significant improvements in all of the pain scores, the severity of muscle spasms, function assessments, and certain subparameters of the quality of life scale (P G 0.05). The continuous ultrasound group had significantly greater improvements in pain at rest (P G 0.05). However, no sta- tistically significant differences were observed in the other parameters (P 9 0.05). Conclusions: Continuous ultrasound therapy is more efficient in reducing pain at rest for myofascial pain syndrome patients than is sham or pulsed ultrasound therapy. Key Words: Therapeutic Ultrasound, Sham Ultrasound, Myofascial Pain Syndrome Authors: Leman Ilter, MD Banu Dilek, MD Ibrahim Batmaz, MD Mehmet Ali Ulu, MD Mustafa A. Sariyildiz, MD Kemal Nas, MD Remzi Cevik, MD Affiliations: From the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Dicle University Faculty of Medicine, Diyarbakir (LI, IB, MAS, KN, RC); Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Dokuz Eylul University Faculty of Medicine, Izmir (BD); and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinic, Siirt Medlife Hospital, Siirt, Turkey (MAU). Correspondence: All correspondence and requests for reprints should be addressed to: Banu Dilek, MD, Dokuz Eylul University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitaiton, 35340 Inciralti/Izmir, Turkey. Disclosures: Financial disclosure statements have been obtained, and no conflicts of interest have been reported by the authors or by any individuals in control of the content of this article. Editor’s Note: Supplemental digital content is available for this article. Direct URL citations appear in the printed text and are provided in the HTML and PDF versions of this article on the journal’s Web site (www.ajpmr.com). 0894-9115/14/0000-0000 American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Copyright * 2014 by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins DOI: 10.1097/PHM.0000000000000210 www.ajpmr.com Efficacy of Therapeutic Ultrasound for MPS 1 Copyright © 2014 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.