Introduction: Headaches are one of the most common diseases in the world that many patients suffer from. Although treatment by chemical drugs reduces pain, it causes complications and costs for the individual. Therefore, in this study, the effect of reflexology on headache has been investigated
Methods: In this study, a review of Irandoc, SID, Google scholar, Scopus, Pubmed ScienceDirect, to find articles in this field, were performed with keywords "reflexology" and "headache" and "zone therapy" and "reflex therapy". 166 articles found that 40 of these articles were examined that 8 articles directly had pointed to the impact of reflexology on headache.
Results: The study showed that the use of reflexology in relaxation, pain management, reducing the dose of drug consumption and prevention of its side effects, as well as improving the quality of life and increasing the common social activity. Studies have shown that patients who receive reflexology are more successful treatment and more rehabilitation than control group. Also, reflexology can also reduce the amount of costs. So today, it has been emphasized on reflexology. Reflexology is effective in helping the body system to return to its natural condition and is an effective treatment for any medical conditions. Headache has many different types in the study studies on migraine which is the 19th most common disease indicating that reflexology has been useful for treating various types of headaches, especially migraine headaches. A randomized double-blind clinical trial was also performed on foot reflexology to reduce headache in patients who had received nitroglycerine injection, indicating the effectiveness of this method except for specific patients who had heart palpitations.
Conclusion: During studies conducted using reflexology as a substitute for reducing the dose of sedative chemical drugs in diseases such as headaches, especially migraines can be very effective and reduce pain and also reduce the consumption costs and complications caused by high dose of chemical drugs