Background:Active trigger points (TrPs) of the suboccipital muscles greatly contribute to the occurrence of chronic tension-type headache, with increased sensitivity of TrPs and facilitated referred pain.Objects:This study aimed to investigate whether the integration of high-frequency diathermy into suboccipital release is more beneficial than the use of suboccipital release alone.Methods:Thirty subjects were assigned to either experimental group-1 (EG-1) to undergo suboccipital release combined with high-frequency diathermy (frequency: 0.3 MHz, and electrode type: resistive electronic transfer), or EG-2 to undergo suboccipital release alone, or the control group (CG) with no intervention, with 10 subjects in each group. The assessment tools included the headache impact test 6 (HIT-6), perceived level of tenderness, neck disability index, and neck mobility. Intervention was performed for 10 minutes, twice per week, for 4 weeks, and measurements were performed before and after the interventions.Results:The between-group comparison of the post-test values and changes between pretest and post-test showed significant differences for all parameters at p<.05, except for the left-to-right lateral bending range. In the post hoc test, EG-1 showed significant differences for the parameters in comparison with the CG, while no significant differences in the perceived tenderness level, on both temporal regions, were found between EG-2 and CG. Furthermore, the HIT-6 score and perceived tenderness level, in the right temporal region, showed significant differences between EG-1 and EG-2. In the within-group comparison, EG-1 and EG-2 appeared to be significantly different between pretest and post-test (p<.05), except for the perceived tenderness level in the right temporal region, with significance for the EG-1 group only (p<.05).Conclusion:These findings suggest that the suboccipital release technique may be advantageous to improve headache, tenderness, and neck function and mobility, with more favorable effects with the incorporation of high-frequency diathermy.

Background : The 1,2-unsaturated PAs, reported to be widely present in medicinal plants belonging to Asteraceae, Boraginaceae, and Fabaceae, cause hepatotoxicity and genotoxicity in humans and animals. Hence, there is a need for an analytical method that allows these dangerous plant toxins to be determined. In this study, we developed a method that can be used for the rapid and accurate determination of nine toxic PAs in medicinal plants using ultra-pressure liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization–quadrupole–time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-ESI-Q-TOF). Methods and Results : The compounds were eluted onto a C18 column with 0.1% formic acid and acetonitrile, and separated with good resolution within 11 min. all analytes was characterized by its precursor ions generated by ESI-Q-TOF and fragment ions produced by collision-induced dissociation (CID), which were used as a reliable database. The proposed analytical method was verified with reference to the ICH guidelines. The proposed UPLC-ESI-Q-TOF method was applied to four medicinal plants, and lycopsamin, echimidine, senkirkine and senecionine were detected by matching with reference standard, and additional six PAs were tentatively identified though chemical profiling. In addition, the QuEchERS method was the most efficient in comparison with methods like hot water and methanol in extraction efficiency of pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Conclusion : The our proposed method can determine PAs rapidly and accurately in medicinal plants and will be utilize as an important data for other researchers who need analytical information of PAs.