سارا متین فرد

Background: Epidemiology studies the prevalence of a disease or injury in a particular society. In fact, the focus is on the study of injury type, body part of injury, the duration of an athlete's absence from sports, severity, treatment costs due to the injury, etc. Taekwondo is one of the most popular sports in Iran which has high injuries due to its contact nature.Aim: This study aimed to identify gaps, and address challenges in the literature on injuries among Iranian taekwondo athletes. To achieve this, the study reviewed research on taekwondo injuries among Iranian athletes, with a specific focus on the incidence rate of injuries, the most commonly injured body locations, the types of injuries, and other epidemiological indexes.Materials and Methods: To conduct the study, databases including "sid.ir", "Magiran", "Iran doc", "Google Scholar", "ScienceDirect", "Scopus", and "PubMed" were searched using keywords including "taekwondo", "taekwondo injury", "epidemiology", "injury rate", "Iranian taekwondo", "sport epidemiology" and "Iran epidemiology". Articles relevant to the subject published between 2005 and 2023 were selected for analysis, focusing specifically on studies related to the epidemiology of taekwondo injuries in Iranian athletes.Results: Total of 70 research were found. The analysis showed sprain and strain with 38.70% and bruises with 30.60% as the most reported types of injury, lower extremity injured mostly with the average of 33.12%.Conclusion: The gap of considering the injury type and severity was observed in most studies. The nature of injury and injury chronometry are of indexes paid less attention as well. Regard to the studies, injuries in the lower extremity are mostly occurred in Iranian taekwondo athletes. A study in epidemiology of taekwondo injuries included all epidemiological indexes in Iranian taekwondo athletes is necessary.

Background: Myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) is caused by sensitive spot in muscles that are known as trigger points (TPs) which can have complications that can affect person's quality of life. Massage and self-myofascial-release (SMR) are two non-invasive techniques which are used to reduce the side effects of TPs. Aim: The present study is intending to compare the effect of the two mentioned techniques in reducing complications caused by TPs such as reduced ROM and pain in women with MPS of the trapezius muscle. Materials and Methods: 45 women aged 20-25 years with active TPs in the trapezius muscle were randomly divided into two experimental groups and one control group. The research process was one week which consists of pretest, 5 days intervention and post-test. The variables included pain measured by OBER questionnaire and ROM of neck measured by goniometer. Results: The results of the study showed that massage can have a significant effect on the ROM of neck including neck flexion (P= 0.00), extension (P= 0.00), left (P= 0.00) and right (P= 0.004) lateral flexion and left (P=0.00) and right (P= 0.04) rotation (P<0.05). Both massage and SMR interventions had a significant effect on reducing pain measured by OBER questionnaire (P<0.05). Conclusion: Findings of this study showed that myofascial release massage can have better effects on increasing neck ROM. Both treatment modalities are useful in reducing pain. Based on the obtained results, we recommend that specialists use massage intervention instead of myofascial self-release (SMR) for individuals suffering from MPS and neck pain, in order to achieve quicker and more extensive results.