Myofascial Trigger Point

Myofascial Trigger Point Therapy in the Management of Movement Dysfunction and Recurrent Pain

Myofascial triggerpoint therapy is used to treat peripheral neurogenic pain. However, MTPs can also be used to optimise movement control therapies. They can also ‘down-regulate’ overactive and lengthen overactive two joint mobilisers and to ‘up-regulate’ and facilitate inhibited one joint stabilisers.

Course Outline

Chronic pain is now recognised as being an extremely complex multifactorial process. Historically, treating chronic pain using a single-dimensional model has failed to be successful. Multi-dimensional approaches which combine elements of the mechanical / inflammatory model along with management of neurogenic pain sensitisation and behavioural / psychosocial models seem to be more effective. Myofascial trigger point therapy has been in existence for thousands of years, though it is only in recent years that science has validated the existence of myofascial trigger points and their pain mechanism. Myofascial trigger point pain is related to a peripheral neurogenic mechanism.

This course reviews the evidence behind the development of myofascial trigger points and their pain producing mechanisms. It details techniques for palpation assessment and manual treatment of active myofascial trigger points. This course introduces a functional approach to myofascial trigger point therapy. Myofascial trigger point treatment can be utilised to optimise the management of muscle imbalance and related pain mechanisms. It can be used to increase extensibility and decrease recruitment dominance within dysfunctional global mobility muscles. Myofascial trigger point treatment is also used to facilitate recruitment of inhibited and elongated global stability muscles. From a more traditional perspective this course also presents the application of myofascial trigger point management within complex neurogenic pain presentations. This course is orientated to a ‘hands on’ practical application of myofascial trigger point management.

Key Features

This course addresses:

• The biology of the Myofascial Trigger Point (MTP)
• How to identify active or pain producing myofascial trigger points
• How to manually treat active MTPs
• How to make links between active trigger points and global muscle imbalance
• The use of MTPs to ‘down-regulate’ and increase functional extensibility in over-active multi-joint mobiliser muscles
• The use of MTPs to ‘up-regulate’ inhibited or elongated 1 joint stabiliser muscles to improve their stabiliser function

This course will help you to:

• Use myofascial trigger point therapy in the management of:
• Movement control dysfunction
• Clinical regional pain scenarios
• Complex regional pain syndromes

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course the participant should be able to:

• To have an understanding of the current evidence / theories regarding the physiology of MTPs
• Palpate and understand the difference between myofascial trigger points and other tender points
• Understand how movement and stability dysfunction can play a role in the development of myofascial trigger points
• Make a clinical diagnosis of myofascial trigger points as a contributing source of pain

The participant should demonstrate the ability to apply principles of assessment and motor control retraining to:

• Use movement dysfunction analysis in a clinical framework to help guide myofascial trigger point release to treat the source of pain, regain muscle extensibility and change recruitment thresholds to enhance motor control
• Integrate the assessment and treatment of myofascial trigger point release, movement dysfunction and stability training into clinical practice

Programme Outline

• A functional approach to MTP therapy (theoretical component)

• Theoretical concept of identifying and treating MTPs (theoretical component)

• Palpation assessment and treatment of active Primary MTPs in short or overactive global mobiliser muscles (practical / lab component)

• Palpation assessment and treatment of active Secondary MTPs in elongated or recruitment inefficient global stabiliser muscles (practical / lab component)

• MTP treatment for ‘simple’ regional pain (theoretical and practical component)

• ‘Traditional’ process of using MTP wall charts to identify active MTPs contributing to regional pain

• MTP treatment for neurogenic and ‘complex’ regional pain (theoretical component)

• Discussion session

• Clinical Scenarios
  

• Clinical reasoning workshop on integration of MTP therapy into contempory clinical management of musculo skeletal pain using a variety of clinical conditions.