Manual Therapy
Manual Therapy encompasses the treatment of health ailments of various etiologies through ‘Hands-On’ physical intervention.
Physical treatments includes massage, soft tissue mobilization, various connective tissue techniques, myofascial release, craniosacral techniques, mobilization of joints, joint manipulation, mobilization of neural tissue, visceral mobilization, and strain and counterstrain.
Manual therapy may be defined differently (according to the profession describing it for legal purposes) to state what is permitted within a practitioner’s scope of practice. Within the physical therapy profession, manual therapy is defined as a clinical approach utilizing skilled, specific hands-on techniques, including but not limited to manipulation/mobilization, used by the physical therapist to diagnose and treat soft tissues and joint structures for the purpose of modulating pain; increasing range of motion (ROM); reducing or eliminating soft tissue inflammation; inducing relaxation; improving contractile and non-contractile tissue repair, extensibility, and/or stability; facilitating movement; and improving function.
Manual therapy can be applied to joints, muscles or nerves and the aims of treatment include pain reduction, increasing range and quality of joint movement, improving nerve mobility, increasing muscle length and restoring normal function
What are the effects of manual therapy?
Strain Counterstrain, or Positional Release Therapy
When you have a muscle spasm or one of your muscles is too tight, too short, overactive, and won’t let go, your therapist can put you in an optimal position for that muscle and guide you through relaxation and breathing while that muscle unwinds, softens, relaxes, and lengthens.
Craniosacral Therapy
Your Central Nervous System is your brain and your spinal cord. It is surrounded by fluid and membranes. When those membranes have tension in them, stick to structures around them, or have other dysfunction, it affects the fluid flow. If the membranes and fluid aren’t gliding and flowing optimally, it can affect your nervous system function, causing symptoms like headaches and neck and back pain. Craniosacral Therapy uses very gentle hands-on pressure to release tension and improve fluid flow, allowing your body to self-heal and calm the nervous system.
Joint Mobilization
To mobilize a joint, your therapist may apply passive movements to the joint in a varying range of pressure, speed, and amplitude. That means they might move your joint a little bit, gently, in a short distance back and forth, or they might make a bigger movement with more pressure. The goal of joint mobilization is to reduce pain and restore optimal biomechanics, movement, and function to the joint.
Passive and Active-Assistive Range of Motion
Every joint in the human body has an arc, or range of motion, through which it can be moved. When there is injury or dysfunction, that range is often reduced. Your range might be impaired because of pain, stiffness, scar tissue, adhesion, muscle imbalance, altered biomechanics, or other reasons. Your therapist can glide your joint passively, where they do the movement for you, or actively, where you and your therapist do the movement together. These techniques can reduce pain and improve the range of motion of the joint.
Myofascial Release
Fascia is fibrous connective tissue surrounding muscles, vessels, and nerves, giving the body shape and form. Fascia is made up of densely packed bundles of collagen. Some types of fascia bind structures together, other areas of fascia are meant to glide smoothly over each other allowing the body to move. When areas of fascia that are meant to glide become adhered, or stuck, Myofascial Release is a technique of manual therapy that releases those adhesions and restores gliding motion to the underlying tissues. Myofascial Release uses gentle, sustained pressure to mobilize connective tissue, relax contracted muscles, and increase blood and oxygen circulation to the tissues.