Understanding Integrative Manual Therapy
By Sheila Yonemoto, PT
 

When trying to understand anything with which one is not yet familiar, it’s important to understand the terminology as well as the frame of reference of the subject.

A discussion of Integrative Manual Therapy (IMT) certainly must address the terminology but probably more importantly it must address its frame of reference and its scope of application.

IMT is best described as a health care process.  It is a unique set of techniques, approaches and methodologies that are used to address pain, dysfunction, disease and disability.  It achieves health and recovery by taking into account the diverse systems of the human body and addressing dysfunction at the cellular level.  IMT practitioners use their hands (among other tools) to assess and treat clients giving the body an opportunity to heal itself.

The fundamental premise of IMT is locating the root cause of dysfunction and reopening the body’s natural lines of communication.  Once this inherent flow is restored the body’s innate healing abilities return to optimum.

That the body operates as a whole and that all the systems of the body seek to protect the body in as normal a state of operating condition as possible is a basic frame of reference for IMT practitioners.  Working from this perspective, as a foundation for application of evaluation and treatment, has led to the development of a system of techniques aimed at locating the root causes of any situations challenging the normal functioning and health of the body and addressing those causes directly.  Only when the causes are treated can the potential for the healthy functioning of the body return.

The approach is a breakthrough medical therapy leading to whole body health and recovery.

Each patient receives one on one attention from a highly skilled practitioner.  The approach utilizes a number of different techniques and approaches and therefore is Integrative.  The techniques are manually administered and the therapy leads to actual health and gives the body the opportunity to fully recover.

Many currently followed models of medical treatment seek to address symptoms with surgical or invasive procedures and often accompany those procedures with powerful drugs.  Integrative Manual Therapy seeks to restore health so that a patient can recover fully with non-invasive techniques and no drugs.

A Way to Consider Integrative Manual Therapy
By Kimberly Burnham, IMTC, PhD Candidate

Integrative Manual Therapy (IMT) is a hands-on approach to healing and recovery from a variety of conditions.  One aspect of IMT is the palpation and normalization of biological rhythms in the body.  These rhythms are reflective of how the body functions or can indicate disease or dysfunction of body functions.

In the case of a heart attack, one way to describe CPR is pressure in a specific location to improve a normal rhythm in the body.  IMT therapists treat many rhythms in the body.  The work can be described as using precise pressure in specific locations to normalize the rhythms and body functions, contributing to improved health and quality of life.

Sometime people ask how can you feel these different biological rhythms?  (Called motilities or circadian rhythms.)  It is not unlike the wine connoisseur who can taste a glass of wine and tell the kind of grapes, where they were grown, the bottler and the year.  What are they doing?  They are taking sensory information, taste and smell and translating it into something else:  a date, location, or a winery.  In IMT, the therapist takes sensory information:  touch, sight and more and translates it into something else, a tissue type, an age, and a type of dysfunction.  The therapist may say there is a bone bruise in the thigh or a compression in the anterior cruciate ligament of the right knee.  If the client had an MRI, it would likely show the bone bruise or the damaged ligament, but is it worth while for the client to have invasive medical tests to confirm what the therapist is saying?  Mostly no, so how does the client know if the therapist is correct?  They feel, function and look better and at that point, does it really matter whether the theoretical basis for IMT is accurate or not?

Another way to view IMT is as a biomechanical approach where therapists use pressure in specific ways to help the tissue and joint surfaces shift, decompress and unwind, allowing for more space and better movement.  When the tension on blood vessels, nerves and other tissue is released, fluid and information flows better and facilitates recovery.

IMT therapists also use reflex points to expedite healing.  There are many different systems that use reflex points, including acupuncture, shiatsu, reflexology and Chapman’s points.  IMT therapists use reflex points that are reflective of spinal cord level reflexes, brainstem level reflexes as well as reflex points considered to be influenced by the hypothalamus, autonomic nervous system and cortical parts of the brain.  These points are contacted to create a change in the pressures and tensions in the tissue.

Most people would be able to tell which is the painful hip as they watched a man with really bad hip pain walk.  They might not be a ble to articulate that the sound of his foot fall is heavier on the right or that he grimaces slightly as he lands on the left foot or that his knee doesn’t fully extend or his shoulder dips slightly more on the painful side.  A person with left hip pain walks differently from someone with right hip pain.  Most people can see the difference, but are still picking up the information unconsciously.  The IMT therapist makes more of this information conscious and is able to articulate more of what they perceive.  A person with a bone bruise int heir right femur lies on the talbe differently from someone with a disruption of membrane in their femoral artery.  The information is there for anyone to see, but it usually takes some training and practice to pick up this information, make it conscious and articulate what you see.

As Arthur C. Clark put it, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  Integrative Manual Therapy is advanced technology.”