Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/68173
MYOFASCIAL TECHNIQUES ADDITIONAL READING Herman, Judith L. 1992. Trauma and recovery. New York: Harper Collins. Levine, Peter and Ann Frederick. 1997. Waking the tiger. Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books. The Breath Motility Technique is used when initiating work with hot whiplash, in order to soothe the nervous system, increase motility, and broaden the client's proprioceptive awareness beyond painful areas. the difference in your client's breath, too. Continue to coach and encourage your client until the breath is effortless, and it is tangibly clear to each of you that the breath is moving in between your hands, both front and back. Once you both feel the breath in one area, move to a new place nearby, and repeat. Keep the pacing even, and the breath normal. Deep or fast breathing, especially high in the chest, would increase sympathetic activity, rather then calm it. Continue to get agreement about your client's ability to sense the breath in each new spot. Stay encouraging, interested, and focused. If it's difficult for your client to feel the breath in a new place, or if you don't feel it with your hands, return to the last spot where it was clear, and move out gradually from there. Repeat this pattern with the entire thorax and abdomen, on both left and right sides. Take at least 10 minutes for this technique, although allowing even more time would be well spent. This simple technique could be the bulk of an entire session, which would leave your client feeling more settled and relaxed. Incidentally, if you notice that your client's movement is guarded or painful, you may want to perform this technique with your client seated, rather than supine. Seated work in general can be very helpful, if the act of lying down is painful or difficult. These ideas should help you avoid the Pandora's-box effect of making whiplash pain worse with inappropriately deep or direct work. In Part 2, we'll share tips for recognizing and working with the chronic, stubborn patterns typical of cold whiplash, where deep and direct work can be just what is needed. is a member of the Advanced-Trainings.com faculty, which offers continuing education seminars throughout the United States and abroad. He is a Certified Advanced Rolfer and a Rolf Institute faculty member. Til Luchau (info@advanced-trainings.com) NOTES 1. Whiplash/bodyworker ratios are based on an estimated 250,000 bodywork practitioners in the United States. Estimates of whiplash prevalence range from a low of 120,000 new cases annually ("Prevalence and Incidence Statistics for Whiplash," available at www.wrongdiagnosis.com/w/whiplash/prevalence. htm (accessed January 2010)), to a high estimate of 1,990,000 new annual cases (Croft, Arthur C., "Facts Concerning Whiplash Injuries," Spine Research Institute of San Diego. Available at www. thewestclinic.net/pdf/Facts%20Concerning%20 Whiplash%20Injuries.pdf (accessed January 2010)). 2. A study published in the European Spine Journal found that during the period of time between the first and second years following a motor vehicle accident, more than 20 percent had symptoms worsen (H. Olivegren, N. Jerkvall, Y. Hagstrom, and J. Carlsson, "The Long-Term Prognosis of Whiplash-Associated Disorders (WAD)", European Spine Journal 8, no. 5 (1999): 366–70). 3. The term whiplash was first used to describe cervical injuries in 1928 by orthopedic surgeon Harold Crowe, and is subject to some controversy. Physical medicine texts variously prefer the terms acceleration-deceleration injury, hyperflexion- hyperextension injury, or cervical strain-sprain injury. 4. "Quebec Task Force Rewrites Whiplash Protocols," Dynamic Chiropractic 13, no. 12 (June 5, 1995): 28. 5. In 1961, physician Robert Munro wrote: "In its pure form and when rightly diagnosed, the symptoms of 'whiplash' injury are those of cervical muscular spasm often complicated by neurosis." R. Munro, "Treatment of Fractures and Dislocations of the Cervical Spine," New England Journal of Medicine 264, no. 573 (1961). 6. Statistically, whiplash sufferers with workers' compensation claims or lawsuits have significantly worse outcomes than those who do not. In fact, in scientific studies designed to judge the efficacy of interventions, investigators must exclude such patients or report their results separately. (From Brian Grottkau, MD, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine (348, no. 14 (April 3, 2003): 1413–14) about Andrew Malleson's Whiplash and Other Useful Illnesses.) 7. Use of immobilization and cervical collars after whiplash injury have been observed to produce temporomandibular dysfunction, joint adhesions, muscle atrophy, and myofascial trigger points. Whitney Lowe, "Assess & Address: Whiplash," Massage Magazine 104 (July/August 2003). 8. Rene Cailliet, Neck and Arm Pain (Philadelphia: F.A. Davis, 1991), 88. 9. Ibid., 112. 10. Ibid. connect with your colleagues on massageprofessionals.com 115