Saturday 5 June 2010

Neuromuscular Therapy Explained

Neuromuscular Therapy (NMT) is used to relieve muscle pain by using focused pressure on your body's soft tissue to alleviate pain and limitation in your body's ability to move. Your body's soft tissue is manipulated to create an equilibrium with your central nervous system and the reason neuromuscular therapy works is because when you've suffered an injury there's stress that is induced on your nerves causing them to transmit signals to your muscles at an inhibited pace, making your body susceptible to pain and discomfort. When you receive neuromuscular therapy your body's nervous system will begin to stabilize the transmissions of signals from your nerves to your muscles.


There is a difference between neuromuscular therapy and massage therapy.Both methods of treatment are massage treatments, but the key difference is neuromuscular treatment is applied in a semi-static fashion meaning that pressure is applied to specific area on your body for longer periods of time where you are feeling the most pain whereas massage therapy is a fluid motion focussing on your entire body.


How Does Neuromuscular Therapy Work?

NMT is a thorough program of recovery from acute pain from a recent injury and chronic pain from constant stress to body misalignments which utilizes massage therapy in conjunction flexibility exercises to eliminate the causes of your pain. When you receive neuromuscular therapy treatments your body's systems will become balanced and will boost the endorphins that get released into your system. Endorphins are what your body produces to relieve pain.


Neuromuscular Therapy focuses on physiological facts, there are 6 things NMT focuses on:

1. Ischemia

Ischemia (is-KE'me-ah) is a condition where the blood flow through your body is constrained. This is usually caused by blockages in blood vessels in specific parts of your body.

2. Trigger Points

A trigger point is an extremely agitated location in your muscle, which activates pain. Often trigger points cause pain in other areas of your body. To give an example, you could have a trigger point in your neck which triggers headaches. Trigger points themselves may not cause massive irritability themselves but cause you to feel extreme discomfort in other areas of your body.

3. Nerve Entrapment or Compression

Nerve entrapment, sometimes referred to as nerve compression, happens when a nerve in your body gets pinched. Nerve entrapment typically causes the sensation of numbness.

4. Postural Distortions

Postural distortions from too much stress from overworked muscles cause the vertebrae to misalign and pinch and compress your nerves.

5. Nutrition

A neuromuscular practitioner will recommend a healthy diet to promote your return to full health

6. Emotional Wellbeing


Your emotional state of mind is examined with neuromuscular therapy to help alleviate stresses that can trigger physiological muscle and joint pains.


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