Manual Therapy London
Nordic Balance sports massage therapists have years of hands on experience when it comes to treating sports injuries, work related injuries, posture problems, RSI, and chronic pain.
What is 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 practitioners 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.
A consensus study of US chiropractors defined manual therapy as "Procedures by which the hands directly contact the body to treat the articulations and/or soft tissues."
Alternatively, Korr (1978) described manual therapy as the "Application of an accurately determined and specifically directed manual force to the body, in order to improve mobility in areas that are restricted; in joints, in connective tissues or in skeletal muscles."
Types of Manual Therapy Available
There are many different styles of manual therapy.(See Pilates, Massage) It is a fundamental feature of ayurvedic medicine, traditional Chinese medicine and some forms of New Age alternative medicine as well as being used by mainstream medical practitioners. In one form or another it is probably as old as human culture itself and is a feature to some degree of therapeutic interactions in traditional cultures around the world.
[courtesy of wikipedia/Manual Therapy]