Manual therapy: Exploiting the role of human touch

Geri, Tommaso; Viceconti, Antonello; Minacci, Marco; Testa, Marco; Rossettini, Giacomo

doi:10.1016/j.msksp.2019.07.008

Cited by 79 publications

(65 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…For patients, not being able to rely on information coming from their bodies and experiencing such bodily illusions can be detrimental for quality of life, social interactions and, overall, for mental health (Lewis et al, 2007;Longo, 2015). For these reasons, despite the limited diagnostic capacity of the tools now available, we believe it is important that clinicians start to approach (Geri et al, 2019) and validate this kind of unpleasant experience. For instance, clinicians could tell patients that their clinical descriptions resemble the very common situation of receiving an injection from the dentist and thereby perceiving one's lips and cheeks as uncommonly swollen and distorted, despite one's awareness that they maintain their normal size.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explicit and Implicit Own's Body and Space Perception in Painful Musculoskeletal Disorders and Rheumatic Diseases: A Systematic Scoping Review

Viceconti

Camerone

Luzzi

et al. 2020

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Background: Pain and body perception are essentially two subjective mutually influencing experiences. However, in the field of musculoskeletal disorders and rheumatic diseases we lack of a comprehensive knowledge about the relationship between body perception dysfunctions and pain or disability. We systematically mapped the literature published about the topics of: (a) somatoperception; (b) body ownership; and (c) perception of space, analysing the relationship with pain and disability. The results were organized around the two main topics of the assessment and treatment of perceptual dysfunctions.Methods: This scoping review followed the six-stage methodology suggested by Arksey and O'Malley. Ten electronic databases and grey literature were systematically searched. The PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews was used for reporting results. Two reviewers with different background, independently performed study screening and selection, and one author performed data extraction, that was checked by a second reviewer.Results: Thirty-seven studies fulfilled the eligibility criteria. The majority of studies (68%) concerned the assessment methodology, and the remaining 32% investigated the effects of therapeutic interventions. Research designs, methodologies adopted, and settings varied considerably across studies. Evidence of distorted body experience were found mainly for explicit somatoperception, especially in studies adopting self-administered questionnaire and subjective measures, highlighting in some cases the presence of sub-groups with different perceptual features. Almost half of the intervention studies (42%) provided therapeutic approaches combining more than one perceptual task, or sensory-motor tasks together with perceptual strategies, thus it was difficult to estimate the relative effectiveness of each single therapeutic component.Viceconti et al. Body Perception in Musculoskeletal DisordersConclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to systematically map and summarize this research area in the field of musculoskeletal disorders and rheumatic diseases. Although methodological limitations limit the validity of the evidence obtained, some strategies of assessment tested and therapeutic strategies proposed represent useful starting points for future research. This review highlights preliminary evidence, strengths, and limitations of the literature published about the research questions, identifying key points that remain opened to be addressed, and make suggestions for future research studies. Body representation, as well as pain perception and treatment, can be better understood if an enlarged perspective including body and space perception is considered.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explicit and Implicit Own's Body and Space Perception in Painful Musculoskeletal Disorders and Rheumatic Diseases: A Systematic Scoping Review

Viceconti

Camerone

Luzzi

et al. 2020

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

Self Cite

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“…While the current main limitation of Manual Therapy is the production of predominantly short-term responses, these observations are primarily based on studies that have investigated the effectiveness of individual techniques. However, we know that the therapeutic relationship in clinical practice is also made up of other things, such as the therapeutic alliance between practitioner and patient, understood as a person [70].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The said aspects are an integral part of the biopsychosocial model. As a matter fact, there is an affective and cognitive dimension that involves the patient in the therapeutic act linked to the therapeutic "touch" [70]. In accordance with the gate theory, in addition to a reduction of pain perception due to tactile stimulation, touch applied in an "empathic" way has proven capable of reducing pain perception in itself and acting on the concentration of biomarkers related to stress, negative emotions, and mechanisms related to the perception of threats.…”

Section: Manual Therapy: From Theoretical Speculations To Researchmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…This may be due once again to the expectations that, either explicitly or implicitly, the practitioner can give the patient when proposing and applying the said technique. In addition, the very mastery and confidence shown in the execution and application of the technique can convey the feeling of being in "good hands," reduce the sense of threat, and activate central pain-inhibiting mechanisms [70].…”

Section: The Three Ebp Pillarsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Manual Therapy: Art or Science?

Bizzarri¹,

Foglia²

2020

Physical Therapy Effectiveness

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Manual Therapy is one of the most widely used therapeutic solutions in the treatment of pain and musculoskeletal disorders. Its evolution began several centuries ago and culminated in the modern reference methods in the field of physiotherapy, osteopathy, and chiropractic, which mainly address the treatment of joint and myofascial tissues. The advent of evidence-based medicine and the ever-growing literature available in the field of Manual Therapy has led this therapeutic approach to be heavily criticized on the basis of studies that have shown its limitations with regard to manual and palpatory assessment techniques, the poor biomechanical validity of therapeutic methods, and the poor long-term results in the treatment of patients with musculoskeletal pain. A better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of Manual Therapy, as well as of the mediators of the medium-and long-term effectiveness of musculoskeletal rehabilitation processes, has made it possible to reconsider the role of Manual Therapy and the healthcare professionals specializing in manipulative therapy within the framework of the biopsychosocial model, which focuses on the patient and their functionality.

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“…Indeed, the scores of Italian physiotherapy students are far below the sufficiency threshold, below those of their Amer- ican counterparts, and considerably lower also than those of American medical students. Such poor results might be justified by the differences in University programs in America and Italy and the greater importance attributed to manual issues (16). Therefore, knowledge of MSC and serious pathologies tends not to be analyzed in depth.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%