Pain Elimination
Many injuries are not adequately addressed through conventional physical therapy due to the reliance on symptomatic treatment. Oftentimes the cause of chronic or acute pain is overlooked and individuals are released due to insurance coverage or treatment that has failed to change global compensation patterns. Over-reliance on pain killers and modalities that manage (or cover up) pain is not appropriate once the acute phase of an injury is over. On the other hand, many business models of massage therapists, physical therapists, and chiropractors require patients to undergo ongoing treatment despite recurring symptoms or new injuries that are the result of movement dysfunctions that have not been correctly assessed and treated. Chronic pain patients and athletes that struggle with muscle imbalances need to be continually re-assessed and provided with treatment that improves their quality of movement and their ability to engage in activities of daily living.
Rehabilitation
Functional rehabilitation should be driven by patient education and self empowerment. This process begins with teaching patients how to breathe properly to stabilize their lumbar spine, down regulate overactive neck muscles, and integrate proper breathing mechanics into sports and everyday living. Almost all patients that I encounter that are plagued with chronic pain, stiffness, and limitations in movement have never been taught how to breathe properly. This process is fundamental to eliminating low back strain, hamstring tightness, and shoulder dysfunction. Rather than making patients ride a stationary bike for 20-minutes, ice their low back, or perform stretches that only temporarily relieve tightness, true rehabilitation engages patients to move in a way that makes them feel younger, perform better, and eliminates any obstacle that threatens their confidence in engaging in any physical activity that they desire to perform.
Manual Therapy
KMI Structural Integration and Fascial Stretch Therapy are unique soft-tissue therapies that both address local symptoms AND global compensation patterns. The longer an individual is plagued with pain, a movement dysfunction, or an injury the more global the compensation pattern becomes. What started out as a local shoulder problem from a sport injury will gradually become more complex and requires a thorough assessment of core stability, hip flexibility, and skeletal alignment throughout the entire body. These hands on therapies involve non invasive assisted stretching and soft tissue manipulation that will improve posture, skeletal alignment, and movement. Once soft tissue restrictions are addressed, movement that empowers clients to do the bare minimum to perform at their best will become the emphasis. Then, manual therapy will act as an effective form of maintenance and recovery that is dictated by patient needs and activities – not by the ‘business model’ (or needs) of the practitioner.
Which Method of Treatment is Right for Me?
Some individuals may have heard about the quick improvements in flexibility that Fascial Stretch Therapy can provide. Chronic pain patients that have seen 3 or 4 other medical professionals may have been told to seek out a PRI practitioner that can address asymmetries in the body that are driving complex compensation patterns. The following list of services provides information about the main services that I offer. I almost always use a combination of therapies that will best address your particular problem. Treatment is driven by the needs of each individual. If you wish to learn more about a particular therapy, information is provided below on the trainings that I have undergone. Pricing is the same regardless of which therapies I may utilize to best address your problem.
KMI Structural Integration
Structural Integration is a type of bodywork that focuses on the connective tissue, or fascia, of the body. Fascia surrounds muscles, groups of muscles, blood vessels, organs, and nerves, binding some structures together while permitting others to slide smoothly over each other.
Fascia is designed to be elastic and move freely with muscles and bones. Injury, stress, work-related repetitive movements and the effects of aging can cause fascia to lose its elasticity and become shorter, tighter, and more dense. Tightened fascia pulls our muscles and skeleton out of proper alignment and posture, which can cause pain, discomfort, and fatigue.
Structural Integration works to lengthen, stretch, and soften this tissue to restore postural balance, ease of movement, and a feeling of being more at home in your own body. It is practiced in an organized series of sessions or individual sessions within a framework that is designed to restore postural balance by aligning and integrating the body in gravity.
Fascial Stretch Therapy
Fascial Stretch Therapy™ is very effective and gentle style of assisted table-based stretching. After getting off the table you will feel lighter, looser, and literally years younger – able to perform at your best physically.
FST is for everyone regardless of their goals whether they CrossFit, play competitive sports, or just want to remain physically active. In one-hour sessions you will be amazed at how years of stiffness and immobility can be eliminated by quickly transforming your flexibility.
Fascial Stretch Therapy™ is the premier Performance Enhancement tool of the worlds greatest athletes including: Fighters Mike Tyson and Frank Mir; football players Emmit Smith, Kurt Warner, Larry Fitzgerald, Donovan McNabb, Terrel Owens; Olympic medalists Kurt Engle and Tom Brands (wrestling), Sanya Richards (track), Stacy Dragila (pole vault), basketball player & NBA analyst Charles Barkley.
PRI (Postural Restoration Institute)
The human body is not symmetrical. The neurological, respiratory, circulatory, muscular and vision systems are not the same on the left side of the body as they are on the right, and vice versa. They have different responsibilities, function, position and demands on them. This system asymmetry is a good thing and an amazing design. The human body is balanced through the integration of system imbalances. The torso, for example, is balanced with a liver on the right and a heart on the left. Extremity dominance is balanced through reciprocal function; i.e. left arm moves with right leg and vice versa.
Postural Restoration Institute® (PRI) credentialed professionals recognize these imbalances and typical patterns associated with system disuse or weakness that develops because of dominant overuse. This dominant overuse of one side of the body can develop from other system unilateral overuse. For example, if the left smaller diaphragm is not held accountable for respiration as the right is, the body can become twisted. The right diaphragm is always in a better position for respiration, because of the liver’s structural support of the right larger diaphragm leaflet. Therefore, the left abdominals are always important to use during reciprocal function, such as walking, to keep the torso balanced.
DNS (Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization)
The nervous system establishes programs that control human posture, movement and gait. This ‘motor control’ is largely established during the first critical years of life. Therefore, the “Prague School” emphasizes neurodevelopmental aspects of motor control in order to assess and restore dysfunction of the locomotor system and associated syndromes.
The “Prague School” of Rehabilitation and Manual Medicine was established by key neurologists/physiatrists, all of whom were giants in the 20th Century rehabilitation movement: Professors’ Vaclav Vojta, Karel Lewit, Vladimir Janda, and Frantisek Vele.
Based upon the groundbreaking neurodevelopmental and rehabilitation principles described by these mentors, Pavel Kolar has organized the next generation of clinical protocols that are designed to restore and stabilize locomotor function. This new rehabilitation approach is called Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS).
NKT (Neurokinetic Therapy)
NeuroKinetic Therapy® works by communicating with the motor control center of the brain. Most musculoskeletal pain is caused by imbalances of neurological origins wherein some muscles are overactive, while others are inaccessible by the brain. Using manual muscle testing, the neuromuscular patterns governing these movements are accessed in the brain’s motor-control center and can be “edited” for greater efficiency. This process allows NKT® to yield faster and longer-lasting results than many other techniques.
Functional Range Conditioning
Developed by Dr. Andreo Spina, Functional Range Conditioning, or FRC™, is a system of mobility training based in scientific principals and research. Mobility, defined as flexibility plus strength, refers to the amount of USABLE motion that one possesses across a particular articulation (joint). The more mobile a person is, the more they are able to maximize their movement potential safely, efficiently, and effectively.