FUNCTIONAL TECHNIQUE

27/10/09 - Well back at Bethnal Green and just met the ideal candidate for my first attempt of a Functional approach.

The patient was a 81 years of age lady with spondylotic and spondylotic degeneration of her spine. During my examination of her spinal function I identified two levels of decreased quality of movement (T3/4 & C3/4).

I proceeded to ascertain the position of ease for the thoracic spine firstly. The joint I was palpating was tender to touch .... after putting the joint into a position of easy and working with the patients breathing she reported that the joint felt less tender, I'm not 100% sure the quality if the movement was any better, but then I know my palpation in terms of Functional Technique requires a considerable amount of practice. As for the patient stating that if felt less tender, I hope sure meant it and wasn't just being the sweet old lady she appeared and was saying what she thought I wanted to hear lol

I continued onto doing the same for her CSpine ... however I am 100% confident this time ... however I'm confident that I didn't make a difference to quality of movement of her C3/4 .... oh well I'm sure my touch must have had a therapeutic effect on her at least.

I'm looking forward to next week to palpating those joints to see what their function is like.

24/03/10 - Spontaneous Cavitation

Having been struggling with my TSpine HVT techniques I decided to give functional another go ... totally for the wrong reasons yes I know ... but none the less I tired lol. I sat the patient on the table and asked him to take the pose and started to assess the position of ease of his T4 segment. After a few moments of 'playing' around with the technique I returned him to a neutral position and on return a spontaneous cavitation was heard ... don't know who was more surprised me or the patient.

02/05/10 - Valeria showed us a functional technique to work on releasing the sternum. What the operator does is stand in front of the patient who is sat on the plinth. The patient slumps forward and rests there head on the operators shoulder. The operator then palpates the sternum with one hand and then assist by balancing the patients with their other hand on their spine.

I struggled with the technique .... as always ... but I think this is because my palpation isn't fine-tuned enough ... or that I don't trust my palpation skills enough.

Receiving the technique was really nice and comforting actually.