THE FASCIA, BETWEEN VISCERAL PHYSIOLOGY AND MUSCULOSKELETAL BIOMECHANICS

Thinking about how to provide some additional information about what the "Visceral Manipulation" course offered by AIFiMM intends to provide, I found it interesting to start from my daily practice experience towards one of the clinical possibilities within its scope.

    I must preface that I am skeptical of any health theory that imposes or proposes specific and fixed rules such as, for example, strict and logical relationships between muscular, myofascial, or functional chains (or however one chooses to name them).

    I believe that connections always exist but do not always follow biomechanical rules. Rather, the link relating multiple dysfunctional structures is dictated by clinical findings, palpation, various tests, with results that may highlight cause-effect connections or sequences of influences that vary case by case. This is my experience based on my current knowledge.

    I focus on the case of sciatica, the reason for consultation of a pregnant woman. According to local tests, the closest responsible for the symptomatology is a sacrum bone in torsion, a mobility dysfunction that may be muscle-related involving the piriformis and latissimus dorsi. In this specific case, based on more global tests and zonal tests guided by the tensional forces of fascial tissue, it seems to be a chronic hypertonia reflecting biomechanical alterations on the hip joint through the psoas and that, upstream, appears correlated with bruxism with dysfunction of the mandibular condyle ipsilateral to the same hip. This implies a whole series of protective compensations on the cranio-cervical complex and respiratory mechanics.

    Certainly, this case of the pregnant woman is one of the least linear situations also from a technical-operational point of view, having to adapt tests and normalization techniques to those positions best tolerated by the patient.

    Ultimately, the treatment achieved the desired effect, with normalization of mobility in repeated tests at the end of the session and improvement of symptoms in the short to medium term. Obviously the body's creativity and, in the specific case of the woman, the physiological changes related to pregnancy, always lead to the search for economical and functional strategies that make it necessary, in the medium to long term, to reassess the state of compensations as postural and dynamic readjustments. In the long term, moreover, to maintain what has been achieved and to prevent further symptomatic episodes, regular and periodic muscular-postural work will surely be fundamental. Specifically, for our pregnant patient, the goal of the work will be oriented toward restoring physiological respiratory dynamics as well as good muscle elasticity and tone, conditions necessary for better hemodynamics of body fluids, a tissue capacity to adapt more gently and efficiently to the changes that pregnancy will bring in the coming months, better coping with childbirth, and a faster and more physiological postpartum recovery.

    The global approach to the anatomical system is truly beautiful, as is the art of listening. An active and open listening, listening to the tissues and the person's lived experience, always unique and original, never predictable or categorizable. This is the kind of work one learns to do in the "Visceral Manipulation" course. Among the various courses, AIFiMM expands its main training on the Mezieres Method with work on the visceral chain, in its modules "Abdomen-Pelvis Visceral Manipulation" and "Chest-Throat Visceral Manipulation" and then with work on the neuro-meningeal chain with the course "Cranio-Sacral Manipulation": in my opinion a beautiful and complete educational offer for those who want to work in a global and systemic way.