Manual Therapy

Manual Therapy an include a wide variety of hands-on techniques such as joint mobilization, muscle stretching, soft tissue techniques, and therapist applied force to facilitate muscle activation. It can be combined with other treatment techniques and is helpful with both acute and chronic pain as well as decreasing inflammation.

Types of manual therapy:

Joint Mobilization A form of manual physical therapy that facilitates gentle movement of your joints in order to restore joint motion. Goals of joint mobilization are to reduce or eliminate joint pain, reduce stiffness, increase range of motion and coordination. The areas that could benefit from joint mobilization are the spine, shoulder, wrist, hips, knees, or ankles.

Soft tissue mobilization uses stretching and deep pressure to break up rigid muscle tissue, relax muscle tension, and move fluids trapped in the tissues that cause pain and inflammation. STM is used to treat soft tissue injuries including muscle strains and sprains.

Muscle Energy Techniques is a broad class of manual therapy techniques directed at improving musculoskeletal function or joint function, and improving pain. Muscle energy requires the patient to actively use his or her muscles on request to aid in treatment. Muscle energy techniques are used to treat somatic dysfunction, especially decreased range of motion, muscular hypertonicity, and pain.