Healing with hands has existed since the essence of time. A person
in pain will express a need to be touched where it hurts and ask whether
it feels normal, or they may ask to have the painful part move. I
think that all healers practice posturology/orthopraxy to a certain
extent without necessarily being aware of it so long as they are treating
the patient in the upright position.
WHAT IS ORTHOPRAXY?
Orthopraxy can be classified as belonging to the manual therapy group,
in other words a therapeutic touch in treatment. It may in many ways
resemble chiropractic or osteopathy, however the main difference being
that they lack the additional physiological dimension of treating
the patient in the standing the position. Orthopraxy allows for the
patient to remain standing throughout the treatment session, from
thereon it is the brain which takes over and manages all the sensorial
information that has been collected by the hands reacting to recalibrate
the body in relation to the physiological dimension necessary to the
human..
BIPEDY
How do we remain in the upright position? How do we live as humans
maintaining homeostasis in this standing position? We rely on feedback
and feed forward from the various receptors such as somesthesic,visual,
auditory equilibrium or inner ear. These help us to detect movement
as well as acceleration and deceleration; the feet contain the only
receptors that may be in stimulated continuously due to the fact that
we have an almost constant contact with the ground. in short we use
our feet and our somesthetic receptors, eyes, inner ear to remain
in the atanding position. With all of the above taken into consideration
it is then the brain via these various receptors that allows the body
to function efficiently with a minimum of energy expenditure, otherwise
known as postural tone. The body can therefore redirect the energy
in order to achieve efficient locomotion, without pain. This makes
man active, but in such a way as to conserve energy allowing him to
be productive and efficient therefore without pain
LINKS WITH POSTUROLOGY
Posturology deals with the suffering human body on both a diagnostic
and a therapeutic level. Whether the pain is of musculoskeletal or
or in relation to the control sytems of bipedal posture the patient
is treated in standing. As the patient remains in standing during
the treatment session it becomes very apparent that that the neurophysiological
context in which these 2 disciplines evolve is very closely related.
WHO IS ORTHOPRAXY FOR?
Orthopraxy is a very gentle therapy as it treatment the person in
the natural upright position as well as using the brain's reactions
meaning there are no contraindications and can be used with the elderly
and babieS. A few minutes ago i was saying how we treat the patients
in their physiologically normal posture, therefre when treating the
baby he is in his natural physological position which of course means
the baby will be treated in a developmentally appropriate position
as his peripheral and central nervous system are still immature not
allowing him to stand. Our treatment must therefore influence his
NS via the physiological pathways available to the baby. At the other
end of the spectrum we may encounter the paraplegic who's base of
support is not the feet but the pelvic area where his main proprioceptive
information is also gathered. We will treat this type of patient in
the sitting position which his usual antigravity position.
WHO PRACTICES ORTHOPRAXY?
Osteopaths, physiotherapists who have followed a specific and specialized
training program. There is now a list of the accredited therapists
available from the APRO .
.To find out a bit more.........
How to relive tension without manipulation
It may appear extraordinary we don't rely on the well known biomechanical
dimensions which are used osteopathic and chiropractic techniques
which use levers, articular biomechanics in their reasoning, whereas
for us articular biomechanics is of little importance.
Why? Because we yet again "trick" the NS into re-establishing
pre-injury homeostasis. We essentially aim to influence the CNS by
having an effect on the receptors in the soft tissues throughout the
whole body, causing them to depolarise following a therapeutique technique
which then allows the message to reach the brain and use short reflex
arcs. So in other words we try to lure the CNS as shown by many researchers
such as ROLL with tendon vibration, the Scandinavians, EDING, JOHANSSON
or MOBERG concerning cutaneous stretch. We can create kinaesthetic
illusions by the use of techniques that stimulate the conjunctive
tissues causing the illusion of an articular movement, in other words
the patient's brain will believe there is movement, perceives movement,
for him this is reality, however in reality at an articular level,
there has been no movement. For the brain there is no difference,
there has been the sensation of movement, therefore the patient's
reaction inevitably follows. What is great is that with this trick
we have given ourselves the ability to create sensorial illusions
which can be used therapeutically
concrete examples of this illusion may be seen in the treatment of
neurological pathologies such as hemi negligence when a patient having
suffered a parietal CVA, has residual diplopia and is given prism
lenses in order to give the illusion of restoring proper function
or undergo electrical stimulation in the cervical region, or even
galvanic electrical stimulation in the inner ear. The CNS has incredible
potential the key is knowing what to do in order to get therapeutic
benefit
Lasting effect of treatment benefits
Clinical experience and data recorded from non-operator dependent
apparatus have clearly demonstrated that the effects of treatment
are long term and not just transitory. Simply because sensory manipulation,
therapeutic touch have created transient information which the CNS
has perceived as a modification of its state. There is always residual
images. In other words the brain, which constantly functioning, takes
note of the state of the body and these residual images persisting
may be transmitted to the memory and at this precise moment the subject
will simply perceive a new state of his body, another body. it is
this that will give us this persisting therapeutic effect in other
words durable over time
Orthopraxy and multidisciplinary
Orthopraxy allows us to observe corrections of postural tone, rotations
of the scapular and pelvic girdles, these may be observed with the
naked eye. There are instances when the treatment doesn't have the
desired effect, or any effect at all, too good to be true for it to
be 100% effective. Occasionally the desired corrections do not take
place and are not durable, are not long-lasting. It is in this case
that a specific sensory organ which needs to be targeted, either visual,
vestibular or podal at this point a diagnosis and a treatment will
be best if referred to a specialist such as the ophthalmologist, the
orthoptist, the dentist specialised in ocluso-dontology or specialising
in postural therapy who can manipulate in a lasting manner the sensory
organ in question which lead to a permanent reprogramming of posture
that we were not able to generate with our hands.
Indications and contra -indications
We are limited by the plasticity of the organic systems. Plasticity,
therefore the capacity of the musculoskeletal system to move. What
is fixed is fixed, however we do see benefits obtained with patients
suffering with major arthritic changes in the vertebral column (it
is here that we observe the most spectacular effects), they may obtain
important gains in walking perimeters and reduction of pain. There
is another area which imposes restrictions, that is the integrity
of the regulatory loops whether long or short found in the neurological
system. The skin and conjunctive tissue containing the mechanical
receptors must be allowed to depolarise and generate a message. The
nerve pathways must be functional, the integration system at the level
of the CNS or the spinal cord must be functional and the motor system,
the muscle, the muscle fibres must also be intact. If this is not
so then obviously there will be limitations to our system. Limitations
does not mean contra-indications or non-indication, if we take for
example a neurological pathology such as Parkinson's with these
people who are extremely rigid kinetically, we have noticed that they
like our techniques because we are going to allow them to gain plasticity
at a muscular level and we are going to increase a walking perimeter,
modify the parameters of locomotion and this they are grateful for
as it gives more comfort? Although we do not treat
the disease itself but we treat the physical consequences, and here
we still may have an effect and the doors stay wide open.
Objective proof of ttt effect
There are 2 ways to quantify: operator dependent (Fukuda,
Romberg, kinesiology, biomecanics, etc) which remain very
subjective as they contain an element of patient therapist relation.
So in spite of everything we can have limited trust and when we know
that our hands just as our somesthesia may be tricked by sensory illusions
as easily as the eye or the inner ear, we have to admit to limited
confidence in the results obtained. There are other tools of evaluation,
non-operator dependent whereby we can verify with such apparatus as
force platforms, also used in posturology, which allow us to record
the capacity of the patient to remain in his base of support in the
most efficient way. Another tool at our disposal is the semi dynamic
platforms to measure dynamic low energy expenditure balance whilst
executing complex tasks
A placebo effect like with many other therapies must be taken into
account. 35-40% has been recognised in the medical fields and may
be applicable in orthopraxy but not to the detriment of the obvious
and recognised neurophysiological effects of Orthopraxy.
We shouldn't try to hide the existence of this element; however she
should remain cautious when talking about sensory illusions and their
therapeutic use, some people may all too rapidly make the link with
a placebo effect. We must therefore endeavour to focus more precisely
on the neurophysiological effects in order to understand that sensory
illusions are therapeutic when in the hands of experts who have gone
to the trouble of giving reason to their actions