The effects of dry needling on the thumb: A case report.
Mitchell R Voss, Rebecca L Donnay, Jennifer K Homa
PMID 34987351WHAT IT FOUND
A single patient with post-surgical thumb pain and stiffness improved thumb opposition and reduced pain after dry needling.
The change occurred during concurrent occupational therapy, so dry needling's specific contribution cannot be separated from the overall treatment.
Key findings
01Following a dry needling session, the patient improved their Kapandji score from eight to nine out of ten, indicating better thumb opposition.
02The patient's pain score decreased from four out of ten before dry needling to two out of ten at discharge.
03The authors state that because occupational therapy continued alongside dry needling, range of motion increases cannot be solely attributed to the dry needling intervention.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
This is a single case report, so it describes what happened to one person rather than proving that a treatment works. The patient continued receiving standard occupational therapy interventions alongside the dry needling, making it impossible to determine if the improvement was due to the needling, the ongoing therapy, or the natural course of healing. There was no control group or comparison to standard care alone.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest and received no financial support for this work.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that dry needling caused the improvement. The patient received concurrent occupational therapy during the same period, and the authors explicitly state that the range of motion gains cannot be solely attributed to the dry needling.