Trigger Point Therapy
It’s a European system of treatment based on the techniques of acupressure massage applied to the muscles responsible for motor functions and soft tissues. The method lies in applying point pressure to the painful spots of muscles to cure ache in those particular parts. Neutralisation of painful points reduces pain immensely and in general improves the range of muscle movement.
AKKA painful Trigger Point is in fact inflamed connective tissue involving muscle contraction and oxygen deficiency in the tissue that leads to the malfunctioning of nerve ganglions located in different parts of the muscle fibres. Specific techniques of the treatment facilitate oxygen influx to the muscle thereby relieving pain.
History
Trigger point therapy was developed by Janet Travell and David Simons, American doctors and researchers, who further to their in-depth studies located sources of specific pains known as “myofascial pain syndrome”. The syndrome is characteristic not only of local pains but also of aches projected to other parts of the body in addition to the local one.
Treatment Techniques
To begin with, the therapist questions the patient to determine the trigger point location. There are a few treatment techniques of trigger point therapy based on manual therapy for pain relief, muscle strengthening and stretching to its normal condition and its full recovery and functioning.
One of the techniques involves brief energetic pressing on a painful point resulting in a temporary stoppage of blood inflow to this painful point.at the moment blood circulation resumes, blood flows into the muscle with a greater force.
The second technique consists of the softening of muscle tissue and the increase of blood circulation that ultimately reduces pain and restores flexibility of muscular tissue. There are two types of painful points: active ones characteristic of intense pain and latent ones located in deep muscle layers. Latent painful points are responsible for pathology and chronic pains. The particularity of latent points lies in the fact that pain is felt when induced externally while it doesn’t occur under usual conditions.
Trigger point therapy makes it possible to locate the specific points triggering the pain and causing the decrease in the muscles’ functioning and inducing severe primary and chronic pain along with reflective pain in other parts of the body. Treatment of these painful points is based on the principle of restoring muscle movement functions to their normal conditions in the course of 4-5 sessions (10-14 days). The treatment dynamics vary according to the pathology level and the length of time it exists. Timely treatment by a professional prevents injury to other muscles and loss of movement in the joints.
Indications for Trigger Point Therapy
Painful points result from overtraining in sports, sedentary way of life (deskbound professions), poor posture, entailing over-stretching of certain sets of muscles and overwork of joints.
It’s important to understand that a healthy lifestyle includes not only keeping fit and practicing sports but also consulting a professional upon the first painful symptoms. Unfortunately, quite a few people ignore occurrence of pain and instead of determining the cause early on they just take painkillers, which eventually leads to chronic diseases. In this case, the patients suffer from a great number of trigger points located in different parts of the body.
A timely resort to trigger point therapy not only eliminates painful points and prevents the patient’s state from deteriorating but also improves it vastly.
Conclusion
Therefore, trigger point therapy reduces pains substantially, restores muscular motor functions and strengthens muscles. Trigger point therapy is effective in chronic cases. Despite its great efficiency, the trigger point therapy is a rather short-term treatment.