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Massotherapy is a therapeutic massage of muscles and connective tissues, generally applied with hands (manual massage). Massotherapy includes various massage techniques, aiming at promoting the health and wellness of distinct systems of human body, especially the muscle-skeleton apparatus. It is often used even preventivally for various diseases affecting muscles, blood and lymphatic vessels and motor nervous terminations.
It consists of a series of light touch maneuvers, kneading etc, which improve blood and lymphatic circulation, loosening muscle contractures.
It is a massage technique belonging to Cyriax methods. It is applied to a well localized and delimited anatomic structure, affected by a post traumatic inflammatory phenomenon and with adeherence. It is focused on the injured area without involving healthy adjacent tissue.
It is reported to have many beneficial effects on athletic and sports performances. It must be applied pre-performance (warming and increasing muscle capacity and tone) and post-performance (to cool down muscles). It is an effective tool for rehabilitation after muscle injuries.
It is a method that recovers and accelerates lymphatic circulation thanks to specific maneuvers or massages, It is recommended in edema of various origins (post traumatic, post-surgery, vascular, lymphatic edema)
Kinesitherapy is based on the movement of one or more body districts. Through manual therapy, the practitioner treats articular limitation progressively “forcing” the movement.
Kinesitherapy is organized into three levels:
Articular mobilization has always been the most common physiotherapic technique. Whereas generic physiotherapists usually apply osteokinematic mobilization, arthrokinematic mobilization is a peculiar procedure of physiotherapists specialized in Orthopaedic Manual Therapy. The former produces a bone movement in the space, that may be passive, active or active-assisted; the latter produces a movement of an articular joint in relation to the other joint it articulates with, and is exclusively passive. Besides, other mobilization techniques can be applied which combine passive arthrokinematic movement performed by the physiotherapist, with active ostheokinematic movement, performed by the patient; these techniques are called Mobilizations with Movement (MWM) and are the therapeutic focus of Mulligan Concept, a method of manual therapy created by Brian Mulligan, a famous New Zealander physiotherapist. According to the methodology of manual therapy, in a joint recovery program, arthrokinematic mobilization should be used first and, once recovered joint play, ostheokinematic mobilization should be applied. Joint mobilizations are recommended nearly in all the guidelines as treatment suggested by strong evidence and as elective treatment in pathologies involving joint articulation recovery, or where somatic pain is related to mobility deficit. To this purpose, low back and cervical pains with mobility deficit can be mentioned along with various types of arthrosis, adhesive capsulite and post- surgery conditions compromising joint articulation. Joint articulation mobilizations are used for antalgic purpose as well.
