Muscle contraction [tension] headache fact or fiction

ABSTRACT

Muscle contraction is presumed to play a major role in the causation of tension headache, but this claim had not been substantiated objectively. In this study 55 consecutive patients [46 females and 9 males were examined electromyographically during an attack of headache. Eleven patients only showed contraction of the frontalis, temporalis or the posterior cervical muscles, in the rest these muscles were silent. This finding suggest the mechanisms other than muscle contraction are responsible for this type of headache