I’ve added another MFR Treatment Tip short video to YouTube that should make this effective technique sequence even easier for you and your patient. Questions or comment? Just leave a note in the comments section here!
Cheers,
Walt Fritz, PT
www.FoundationsinMFR.com
Looks good Walt.
What is your main intention with this technique. It seems most appropriate for decompressing the occiput and helping it to drag posterior on the atlas? Would you do SCM work prior to this or does that posterior traction give that tissue a decent stretch as well?
It seems a little aggressive for acute issues – when do you find this to be most appropriate?
Justin
Hi Justin,
I use this daily, with acute and more chronic patients. Most patients state that this sequence is actually quite comfortable, as their neck is maintained in a relative midline/neutral alignment. That is the pint of allowing the slight extension once you have them in the position. My main purpose in performing this is to 1) Isolate familiar aspects of pain or movement dysfunction and, 2) Relieve or eliminate the symptoms. “Decompressing the occiput” would be more of a metaphor for reducing pain/symptoms rather than believing it to be an actual occurrence, as would repositioning the atlas. I would tend to work the anterior neck as a separate sequence, though much anterior referral of symptoms is frequent. To me this would include the SCM and deeper anterior cervical structure.
“1) Isolate familiar aspects of pain or movement dysfunction and, 2) Relieve or eliminate the symptoms. ”
Is this coming from a counter-strain type mentality in regards to finding a place of ease and allowing for intrinsic re-patterning? I’m not exactly sure if I understood point one clearly.
My comments come from my own approach, which may resemble others though I’ve not taken any strain-counterstrain training. I utilize a feedback loop for evaluation and treatment (see http://www.waltfritzseminars.com/blog/?p=1062). It is not about finding a place of ease, rather it is about connecting, via palpation, to tightness/grumpiness that reproduces a familiar aspect of the symptom(s), whether it is pain or reduction of pain. This is done to establish the relevance of the area. Once relevance is established, treatment follows from that area.