Physiotherapy in primary dysmenorrhea: literature review

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:Dysmenorrhea is a word derived from the Greek language and means difficult menstrual cycle. It may be classified as primary, leading to poorer quality of life indices of several women. This study aimed at investigating, by means of literature review, the efficacy and accuracy of existing therapies for primary dysmenorrhea, specifically in Physiotherapy.CONTENTS:Narrative literature review by querying electronic databases Medline, Scielo, Lilacs, Cochrane library, PEDro and Pubmed), where articles were selected and analyzed from August 2013 to February 2014. For data collection, materials from 2005 to current literature were included using the following keywords: “dysmenorrhea”, “physiotherapy” and their Portuguese equivalent “dismenorreia” and “fisioterapia”, combining them with the operators AND and OR.CONCLUSION:Studies were found describing the use of thermotherapy, cryotherapy, transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation and connective tissue massage, Pilates and acupuncture with improvement of such women's symptoms. However, it is clear the need for studies regarding physiotherapeutic maneuvers with further methodological rigor.

Keywords

• dysmenorrhea
• physiotherapy
• woman's health