Neurokinetic Therapy is a cutting-edge assessment and treatment modality that uses movement patterns to identify and correct dysfunctional motor control and muscle compensation patterns.
Following an injury have you ever noticed that pain and discomfort start to appear in other areas of your body? You may be thinking “This is it; I’m falling apart!” It feels so discouraging when mysterious pain and stiffness interfere with the activities you enjoy.Quite often, these problems are a result of other (sometimes old) injuries. The good news is that our Physiotherapists, Athletic Therapists and Massage Therapists can help!
One of the methods of assessment and treatment that can be pivotal in finding the cause of unexplained pain is Neurokinetic Therapy! In this blog, we’ll talk all about what Neurokinetic Therapy (NKT) is and how it can help.
In the case of an injury that manifests itself in other areas, your amazing and clever body is simply reacting to the injury by finding new ways to move. Injured muscles will stop firing or weaken to protect themselves from further injury or pain. Other muscles are now forced to overwork and overcompensate, causing you pain and discomfort. Your body is compensating for the injury by learning new ways to provide stability and relief from pain. However, whilet hese compensation patterns might provide some temporary relief to the area, [1] over time they often lead to persistent pain and decreased function and performance in other areas.
Neurokinetic Therapy (NKT), is a forward-thinking therapeutic system that can help your body to unlearn the compensatory movements and muscle functions it has been relying on, allowing your body to heal and readopt healthy, pain-free movement. Instead oftreating everything that seems to be tight and sore as individual problems, NKTaims to figure out WHY there is dysfunction and what contributing factors are involved.
In this assessment tool, testing helps to identify where the cause of the pain originates. A muscle can be tight and sore for two reasons. It can either be compensating for a weakness or it can bea tight and weak structure. NKT determines which muscles are being inhibited and which ones are compensating. It can reveal the flawed muscle and movement memories that have been created and stored in the brain’s Motor Control Center(MCC) of your cerebellum, which is responsible for your body’s movementpatterns. Using NKT, your Physiotherapist will help you reprogram your brain to correct the flawed patterns through targeted exercises.
It almost seems like magic but, I assure you it is not; it is a skillful integration of Motor Control therapy, neuroscience and biomechanics.
With this method of hands-on muscle testing, your Physiotherapist will determine the sites of injury and dysfunction by applying light pressure that you will resist. A review of bothpast and present injuries and a thorough examination of movement patterns willreveal your body’s weaknesses. Different muscles will be activated and deactivated to identify injured and compensatory muscles. Once we know where the injury exists, we can retrain your body andbrain to let go of problematic patterns while introducing healthy movementpatterns.
Picture someone with a complaint of persistent low back pain. Despite stretching, and massage there is no long-term relief. Instinctually, we are going to want to treat the area that is causing pain (the low back) without realizing that the problem is actuallybeing caused by weakness in the abdominal muscles. The reason the lower back is so sore is that it is constantly working overtime to compensate for the lack of support by the core abdominal muscles.
With NKT testing, your Physiotherapist can find these muscle relationships and correct the dysfunctional patterns through customized exercises.
Neurokinetic Therapy is an effective assessment and rehabilitation technique for competitive athletes, weekend warriors, desk jockeys and everything in between.
If you find that the treatments you have been doing aren’t giving you lasting relief, you may want to consider Physiotherapist facilitated Neurokinetic Therapy to discover the root cause of the pain. At Inertia Physio+, Physiotherapist, Natasha Loewen is our Neurokinetic Therapist. She is certified in NKT and would be pleased to help you restore balance and get back to the active lifestyle you value. Contact us today at: 613-672-2200, info@inertiaphysio.ca or visit our website to learn more!
