This broad-brush term covers a range of manual techniques used in the clinical assessment and treatment of a variety of common presenting pain issues.
What can you expect during a treatment?
A typical series of sessions comprises the following:
- Taking a full case history from clients (the bulk of this is usually done within the first session)
- What is causing you pain or discomfort?
- What makes this pain better and worse?
- Details of medical operations
- History of accidents, scars, physical/emotional trauma
- History of on-going/past medical pathologies
- Current/past medications
- Life style choices
- Day-to-day running of the body
- Stress levels at home and work
- Sleeping patterns
- Physical exercise
- Dietary and eating habits
- Typical movement/postural patterns
- Performing a full functional assessment of the body: setting an initial baseline (done within first session)
- Show me where it hurts or feels restricted
- Bench marking existing pain: using a simple 0-10 number scale for pain
- Assessing range of motion of joints
- Muscle tone/tightness
- Neurological strength assessment
- Balance assessment
- Movement assessment
- Relationships between weak or strong muscle groups, spinal rotation, and joint compression
- Show me where it hurts or feels restricted
- Analysing the results and putting together a logical treatment pathway aimed at improving baseline measurements (performed within the first session and reviewed regularly against baseline)
- Working with clients over regular weekly/monthly sessions to reduce pain and optimise core function
- Providing clients with self-care homework, which mimics the work we do together in clinic
- Reviewing progress regularly to understand positive/negative impacts and changes
- Addressing new pain manifestations, dealing with underlying/root musculoskeletal dysfunction
- Moving clients towards maintenance sessions every 4-6 weeks
- Hands-on work during the treatment may come in variety of forms:
- Informed/listening touch: initial treatment begins with a soft listening touch, focusing on feedback from the client in areas of tightness and acute pain
- Trigger point therapy: working with the client to establish hot-spots of pain, applying compression techniques and awaiting change in pain response
- Myofascial release: using slow varied Myofascial techniques to release and stretch soft tissue
- Soft tissue release: A combination of tissue manipulation and movement (stretching) in a specific way releases trauma and micro traumas in muscles and re-educates the nervous system. This precise technique tricks the nervous system and re-sets the muscles memory effectively restoring correct length and tone
- Table acupressure: incorporating body-weight driven table Shiatsu to mobilise larger areas under stress/tension
- Sports stretching: working with the client to provide slow deep stretches of limbs/muscles
- Muscle energy techniques: emerged as a form of osteopathic manipulative diagnosis and treatment in which the patient’s muscles are actively used on request, from a precisely controlled position, in a specific direction, and against a distinctly executed physician counter force