Favorite References

Must Read Dry Needling Articles

My Favorite References: Dry Needling Edition

One of my favorite presentations on dry needling that I’ve given for the Ohio Physical Therapy Association and our orthopaedic manual physical therapy fellowship is titled The Wild West of Dry Needling: Why Research Needs to Catch Up to Clinical Practice. Often times I’m asked for my references from this presentation.

Below is a curated list of my favorite dry needling articles to read.

History of Dry Needling: Of these articles my favorite is the Zhou and Brogan paper. I think it gives an excellent look at the history of dry needling and acupuncture, and has a measured view of the debate between acupuncture and dry needling. Dunning et al. and Unverzagt et al. give great perspectives as well.

Classic Paper: After performing a systematic review on the effects of needle therapies on muscle force produciton in JOSPT, when it came to dossage of trigger point dry needling, almost every study cited this article from Hong.

Safety of Dry Needling: When it comes to safety of dry needling as performed by physical therapist, this Brady et al. paper is probably the most mentioned, and classic paper to read. I’m a fan of the latest research from Boyce et al. which gives an updated perspective on adverse events with dry needling by physical therapists and does an excellent job comparing their results to the Brady et al. paper. The Hall et al. part one and part two papers are excellent in regard to practical safety considerations with dry needling, and papers I wish I would have read sooner.

Accuracy of Dry Needling and Safety: There needs to be more research investigating the accuracy and safety of various dry needling procedures. For our paper on the safety of dry needling to the lumbar spine we were inspired by the paucity of evidence in the scientific literature and the work from Dr. Kearns and Dr. Fernández-de-Las-Peñas.

Effects of Dry Needling: I think both of these papers are good introductions to the effects of dry needling.

Dry Needling for Tendinopathy: AW McDevitt and PE Mintken presented an excellent talk at APTA CSM in New Orleans and packed two ball rooms wall to wall on the topic of dry needling and tendinopathy. Hands down one of the best talks I’ve seen at CSM and a great summation of the evidence.

Systematic Reviews: There have been numerous systematic reviews on the topic of dry needling. Below are some of our favorites. Majority of the reviews assessed the effects of dry needling on pain, which is what motivated us to analyze the effects of needling therapies on muscle force production.

Placebo Mechanisms: Our systematic review identified many methodological flaws in dry needling studies, however a major concern was that few studies actually controlled for the placebo effect. The study by Mayoral et al. is one of my favorite examples of a dry needling study controlling for the placebo effect and a very unique example of the participants actually being blinded to which treatment group they were in. A super rare find and worth a read. In regard to placebo mechanisms, my favorite viewpoint article from JOSPT on the topic was written by Bialosky et al. This articles scores extra points with me because they reference Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Interesting Case Reports: Journal of Manual and Manipulative Therapy had a special issue on dry needling where they published a case report by Snyder. My jaw dropped when I read this case,  from the first word to the last.

Those are my favorites. Hope you found one to add to your own reading list.

Best wishes,