What is a Counterstrain point?

Counterstrain is a technique used in osteopathic medicine, osteopathy, physical therapy, and chiropractic to treat somatic dysfunction. It is a system of diagnosis and treatment that uses tender points, which are considered to be produced by inaccurate neuromuscular reflexes.

What is Counterstrain technique?

Strain Counterstrain is a manual therapy technique, meaning clinicians use only their hands for treatment of muscle and joint pain. It uses passive body positioning of hypertonic (spasmed) muscles and dysfunctional joints toward positions of comfort or tissue ease that compress or shorten the offending muscle.

Why is Counterstrain indirect?

Counterstrain is an indirect technique in which the practitioner places the patient away from the restrictive barrier. The basic procedure for all counterstrain techniques starts with the practitioner finding a tender point in a muscle, ligament, or tendon.

What is osteopathic manipulative treatment OMT?

Osteopathic Manipulation Treatment (OMT) Doctors of osteopathy (DOs) literally take a hands-on approach to musculoskeletal disorders. Osteopathic manipulation treatment (OMT) is used to help correct structural imbalances in your body, improve circulation and relieve pain.

How long does it take for Counterstrain to work?

Most patients will experience significant relief within 1-4 sessions and be discharged to a home program within 10 sessions. If no change is noticed within the first 6 sessions, we typically advise that you contact your doctor for further evaluation.

How long is Counterstrain held for?

What Is Strain Counterstrain? Strain Counterstrain is used to treat new or long term muscle spasms any place in the body. This technique involves “hands-on” treatment that attempts to alleviate muscle and connective tissue tightness by the use of very specific treatment positions held for 90 seconds.

What is fascial Counterstrain therapy?

Fascial Counterstrain (FCS) is a therapeutic, hands-on method, designed to release spasm in all tissues of the human body. Every organ, nerve, artery, muscle, ligament, tendon, vein and lymphatic vessel in the human body can actively spasm and produce pain in a natural, protective response to injury.

Is OMT like a chiropractor?

While DOs and chiropractors may use some of the same techniques, there are distinct differences between them. OMM treats more than just joints. While chiropractors focus on your bones, DOs use OMM to prevent and treat health concerns affecting any part of the body.

How is OMT different from chiropractic?

When doctors use OMT, they move the patient’s joints and muscles using stretching, resistance and gentle pressure. When a chiropractor makes an adjustment, they use “force, leverage, direction, amplitude and velocity which is directed at specific joints and anatomical regions.”

What is the Jones technique?

Jones defined his technique as “a passive positional procedure that places the body in a position of greatest comfort, thereby relieving pain by reduction and arrest of inappropriate proprioceptor activity that maintains somatic dysfunction”.

When do you use strain Counterstrain?

Strain Counterstrain is a manual therapy technique, meaning the clinician only uses his hands, to treat muscle and joint pain and dysfunction. In observing a skilled Strain Counterstrain practitioner you will immediately be impressed with how gentle and non-traumatic this technique is for treating the painful patient.

Is Counterstrain passive?

Counterstrain is an indirect, passive technique in which the patient is positioned away from a restrictive barrier of motion. The physician monitors the tender point in one hand and holds the patient in a position of ease with the other for 90 seconds.