Soft Tissue Therapy

What is Soft Tissue Therapy

By using their hands (ART, Trigenics, Clinical Neurodynamics) or by using tools (IASTM- Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Therapy), use of soft tissue therapy allows our Chiropractor to diagnose and treat soft-tissue injuries. Soft tissue refers primarily to muscle, tendon, fascia, and nerves. By restoring mobility and the relative motion of the soft-tissue layers, soft tissue therapy promotes blood and lymph circulation, and increases neurological function by reducing hypoxia.

Headaches, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, shin splints, shoulder pain, sciatica, plantar fasciitis, knee problems, and tennis elbow are just a few of the many conditions that can be treated effectively with various soft tissue therapy techniques. These conditions all have one important thing in common: they often result from irritation or injury to over-used muscles. Over-used muscles can become hypersensitive, can feel tight, and can be painful with movement.

How do overuse injuries occur?

Over-used muscles (and other soft tissues) change in three important ways:

  • Acute Injuries. (Pulls, Tears, Collisions, etc.)
  • Accumulation of small tears (micro-trauma)
  • Not Getting Enough Oxygen (hypoxia)

Each of these factors can cause your body to produce tough, dense scar tissue in the affected area. This scar tissue binds up and ties down tissues that need to move freely. As scar tissue builds up, muscles become shorter and weaker, tension on tendons causes tendonitis, and nerves become trapped.

This can cause reduced range of motion, loss of strength, and pain. If a nerve is trapped, you may also feel tingling, numbness, and weakness.

What is a Soft Tissue treatment like?

Every treatment session is actually a combination of examination and treatment. The provider uses his or her hands to evaluate the texture, tightness and movement of muscles, fascia, tendons, ligaments and nerves. Abnormal tissues are treated by combining precisely directed tension with very specific movements

A treatment session typically last about 10-15 minutes. The problem should be noticeably improved within 5-6 treatments. If a change has not been seen within this time, further evaluation may be necessary.

Along with the soft tissue therapy, chiropractic manipulation and rehabilitative exercise to improve strength and flexibility are usually advised.

Active Release Technique

Your Vancouver Chiropractor offers Active Release Techniques for sports injuries, arthritis and a variety of other chronic or degenerative conditions. Dr. Ian Boonstra is a Full Body Provider of Active Release Technique (Spine, Upper and Lower Extremity).

The official Active Release Technique web site describes ART as “a patented, state of the art soft tissue system/movement based massage technique that treats problems with muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia and nerves. Headaches, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, shin splints, shoulder pain, sciatica, plantar fasciitis, knee problems, and tennis elbow are just a few of the many conditions that can be resolved quickly and permanently with ART. These conditions all have one important thing in common: they are often a result of overused muscles.”
Basically, ART is an advanced movement-based massage system, which is extremely effective for accurately locating the cause of soft-tissue conditions and effectively resolving (or greatly improving) overuse and strain/sprain conditions.

ART is hands-on and can sometimes be uncomfortable to the patient. Communication is key so that you and your provider ensure that it is tolerable and remains therapeutic.

Instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization (IASTM) is a myofascial intervention used for soft-tissue treatment through the use of tools on the skin. It is applied using instruments that are usually made of stainless steel with bevelled edges and contours that can conform to different body anatomical locations and allows for deeper penetration. These tools are used for the detection and treatment of soft tissue disorders. The ergonomic design of these instruments provides the clinician with the ability to locate restrictions and allows the clinician to treat the affected area with varying amounts of pressure.

A proposed description for IASTM is “a skilled intervention that includes the use of specialized tools to manipulate the skin, myofascia, muscles, and tendons by various direct compressive stroke techniques”.

The introduction of controlled microtrauma to affected soft tissue structure causes the stimulation of local inflammatory response increasing circulation. Microtrauma initiates reabsorption of inappropriate fibrosis or excessive scar tissue and facilitates a cascade of healing activities resulting in remodelling of affected soft tissue structures. IASTM treatment has a neurophysiological effect as it stimulates mechanosensitive neurons through skin deformation by the instrument. Mechanosensitive neurons include mechanoreceptors which are responsible for two-point discrimination and mechano-nociceptors which are responsible for pain perception. So the therapist is able to modulate the nervous system to reduce pain.

A groundbreaking approach to nerve mobilization, this technique involves the complex subject of neurodynamics and the basic mechanisms of movement within the nervous system, systematically linking causal mechanisms to diagnosis and treatment of pain and common musculoskeletal problems. This progressive method is ideal for diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal disorders with a tested nerve involvement. The treatment of conditions such as spinal nerve pain, or peripheral neuropathy disorders are done by assessing and restoring the movement patterns of the associated nerve root, and the involved peripheral nerves.