Treatment and Counselling Methods

​

​

Tuina and triggerpoint therapy

​

Tuina refers to the manual-therapeutic system within Chinese Medicine. It includes massages affecting muscle and connective tissue as well as muscular mobilisations and a certain amount of chiropractic manipulation.
Tuina is used for both biomedical and Chinese medical diagnoses:

​
 

• Various musculoskeletal/orthopedic complaints

​

 

 

Triggerpoint therapy (TPT) aims to detect myofascial trigger points (TPs). TPs are often (partly) responsible for both acute and chronic musculoskeletal pain, which can radiate into distant regions. A well-known example are TPs of the hooded or shoulder-lifter muscle, which trigger headaches in the neck, temples or behind the eyes and can even become migraine.

The main areas of application are therefore
 

• Radiating pain of muscular cause (differential diagnosis?!)

 

​

​

​
 

​

Background information

​

Finally, TPs represent permanently contracted areas within a muscle, which are thus cut off from oxygen supply.
TPs can be caused by overloading, as well as due to poor posture.
 

In TPT, TPs are isolated even more strongly from the oxygen supply by means of targeted compression (about two minutes per TP), in order to subsequently achieve increased blood flow in the affected area with reactively improved oxygen saturation, in order to break the ciruculus vitosus of muscular tension and transmitted pain.

TPT is often combined with acupuncture (so-called 'dry needling'), whereby sterile acupuncture needles are inserted directly into an identified TP.
 

Tuina and TPT can be combined excellently in practice.
 

Such a combination represents a good example of an eclectic combination of therapeutic procedures of former occidental (aim: blood flow stimulation for increased tissue O2 saturation) and oriental (aim: dissolution of qi and xue stases, in order to restore the free flow of qi and xue in the respective pathway) origin.

​