During your treatment, your therapist will discuss and use different ’hands-on’ techniques to help improve any stiffness or pain in any of your affected joints. Although this is more commonly used for spinal related pain, manual therapy can be used for all joints in the body. Most commonly performed as a mobilisation, they have a large variety of different effects, from increasing range of motion of a joint, decreasing pain and increasing ease of movement. They’re performed by the physiotherapist applying gentle force to the joint, often in a way that it would not normally move physiologically. This will generally feel therapeutic for the patient and people often feel it’s getting to the ‘source of their pain’.
For spinal conditions, joint manipulation can also be performed. This is when a spinal segment is taken towards its end-range and a small thrust is performed, which elicits the ‘click’ that people know well. This is extremely effective at very quickly restoring movement and improving joint function.
