site restyle
16 September 2010
James Walters at studioassist.com.au has been busy getting the new restyled site up and running. At this stage we have simply populated the site with previous copy. If you have been here before then you may notice some new elements, including this blog and meshwork. Updated resource section, including new videos coming soon...
Oh and what does this softtissue thingy mean?
16 September 2010
softtissue should be understood here as a noun rather than an adjective. It does not describe a sort of therapy or specific type of tissue. softtissue is a state and is intended to evoke ideas of health like resilience, flexibility, mutability, adaptability and self-organisation - its amplification & full emergence can also be seen as desired osteopathic treatment outcome. softtissue does have a broader anatomical reference - the ubiquitous fascia that permeates and is the dynamic scaffold of the musculoskeletal and other systems.
Some thoughts on Andry Vleemming Workshop. Lumbo-pelvic stability, diagnosis and treatment. 4/5 September 2010.
16 September 2010
I recently participated in a 2 day workshop with Dr. Andry Vleeming who is one of the more highly regarded researchers and thinkers contributing to basic and applied research into low back, pelvic & sacroliliac joint function. He is one of the editors and major contributer to the textbook Movement, Stability and low back pain - The essential role of the pelvis (Churchill Livingstone, 2 edition, ISBN-10: 0443101787). Andry Vleeming is part of the scientific committee behind two of my favorite interdisciplinary conferences www.worldcongresslbp.com and www.fasciacongress.org. Dr Vleeming is the driving force behind the multidisciplinary Spine and Joint centre http://www.spineandjoint.nl/index.php?lang=en
The workshop explored the movement and function of the sacroiliac joint, force and form mechanisms of its engagement, passive and active elements that produce and limit movement as well as fascial anatomy and function. His presentation drew heavily on his groups research as well Australian researchers Paul Hodges http://www.uq.edu.au/uqresearchers/researcher/hodgesp.html and Peter O'Sullivan http://physiotherapy.curtin.edu.au/home/staff/osullivan/ to elaborate a rich model of function, pain and rehabilitation that include ideas and evidence of the role of altered motor control, breathing patterns and psychoemotional stress.
A major divergence from the osteopathic approach to the pelvis was Vleemings suggestion that most dysfunction and pain is extrinsic and adaptive (muscle tension around the pelvis) rather than the osteopathic notion of intrinsic or articular strain.
Andry presented data on and demonstrated a number of specific and reliable orthopedic tests for pelvic pain and identified numerous deep pain-producing fascial structures readily palpated in pelvic pain patients. This diagnostic battery was then blended into manual technique including some distinctly osteopathic approaches.
Dr. Vleeming explored the use of language in a clinical setting emphasising the potentially negative and inaccurate use of such terms as instability and weakness. Vleeming argued that the use of this language and the implied impending catastrophic structural failure, coupled to the excesses of ill-informed core stabilisation therapy and training has produced a cohort of back pain sufferers who employ maladaptive rigid control strategies leading to robotic, apprehensive (pain anticipatory) and poorly integrated movement - all of which compound and perpetuate pain and dysfunction.
This is a picture I frequently encounter in osteopathic and yogic practice and has long informed my approach to movement-based therapies that improve global movement awareness and integration rather than merely local stabilisation.