Myofascial release and evidence-based practice

File this under 'required reading.'

Please head over to myphysicaltherapyspace.com, specifically to the entry on evidence-based practice and myofascial release interventions. This is an excellent discussion and I hope you all have the chance to take a look at it.

Myofascial release is a modality that is much more widely used in physical therapy than occupational therapy, but it still crops up in OT interventions from time to time. I am especially concerned about so-called craniosacral therapies and the ways that some therapists combine these dubious interventions with other OT quackery.

I really don't have more to add than what was posted by Jason Silvernail, DPT - so please go read his excellent entries!

Comments

Liz Ditz said…
Thanks for the link to the series. I've phttp://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2008/04/myofascial-rele.htmlublished a link here.
12:35 PM
Anonymous said…
I have been a PT for 30 years and have avoided John Barnes all this time. A very smart colleague of mine raved about the course so I drank the koolaid and took MFR1 and unwinding.No doubt these were the most fun and best taught con ed courses I've ever done. To me John Barnes is an amazing healer teacher. The question however is,is this valid evidence based therapy.


If we study Moseley/Butler/loew we know how complex the mind / body/ centralization of complex pain is.It seems that we can effect psycho-emotional stress held in the myofascia with MFR techniques. PT has been slow to embrace the psychological component of pain. We are much better at dealing with this than psychology because we touch, stretch, and exercise patients. We become very limited by evidence based therapy. Its too easy to stick a transducer somewhere and measure VMO activation with SLR. Somato-emotion complex pain relief may be hard to measure. It is the most rewarding therapy I've ever done.
11:03 PM
Christopher J. Alterio said…
Unfortunately the link in the original article is broken, but I will post another for people interested in somatoemotional release http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/cranial2.html
8:48 AM
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