Have you ever wondered why your body does not seem to work properly? Do you get the feeling that most treatment does not work very well? Have you tried everything but cannot shake off a persistent problem? You could be suffering from a disturbance to your proprioception.
Proprioception is a medical term that describes the brain's awareness of the position of the body. Doctors call it "joint position sense", but it is so much more than this. Proprioception is the key to all body motion and control. Awareness of our body without the ability to move, would be pointless. Proprioception is a subconscious sensory-motor system that ensures our muscles control our movements efficiently and effectively. Proprioception keeps our joints, muscles and bones free of pain and injury.
Proprioceptive medicine applies the principles of proprioception in a comprehensive system of health care. Developed through years of careful observation and study, it helps health professionals deliver lasting benefits faster and more efficiently, without having to give up any of their existing techniques or procedures.
It works like this
Just as your senses inform you of the external world, proprioception keeps your brain and nervous system aware of your internal world. Your brain uses sensory information from your muscles and skin to feel what is happening to it all the time. It uses this information to constantly regulate your muscle tone, which is how it controls the way you move. Proprioception will cause you to limp if you are injured, flinch if you are tickled, catch yourself if you fall, and pull away if you touch something too hot. What most medical and alternative practitioners do not realise is that the most important function of proprioception is not to know where the body is, but to control muscle tone.
Proprioceptive medicine is the assessment and treatment of disturbed proprioception.
If proprioception is disturbed, then so is muscle strength. Muscle inhibition is the direct result of abnormal proprioception.
Even the strongest, most muscular of people can suffer from muscle inhibition, although they have no way of knowing their muscles are inhibited until they are tested.
Muscle weakness indicates your nervous system is being irritated by something. It is the job of the proprioceptively astute practitioner to find the cause of that irritation and remove it.
If your muscles are inhibited, your joints will be unsupported. This makes them vulnerable to injury, recurrent injury and osteoarthritis. Weakness in muscles does more than just cause pain. Muscle inhibition causes tiredness, lethargy, stress, increased blood pressure, depression and many other conditions. Proprioceptive medicine practitioners know that weakness is a big, flashing neon sign pointing to a problem. It is their job to find out what that problem is and help you fix it.
Check out the science bit ...
Proprioception is extremely complex and poorly understood, even for medical and exercise professionals. It is based on reflexes designed to alter and control muscle strength.
The flexor withdrawal reflex is the reflex that pulls your hand off a hot plate or your foot off a nail. It even makes you flinch when you are tickled.
The flexor withdrawal reflex can override the myotatic reflex - causing chronic muscle inhibition that cannot be strengthened with exercise. This is just one cause of the muscle weakness we detect through testing.
Some causes of weakness
Structural
If joints fail to move correctly, the lack of stimulation from the joints will cause muscle inhibition that leads to further lack of mobility.
Dental
Some dental work irritates nerve messages from the mouth. This can have severe consequences for muscle activity.
At present, very few dentists are aware of the proprioceptive consequences of their work.
Nutritional
A good diet is essential to good nerve and muscle function. However, what suits one person may not suit another. We check your organs, diet and lifestyle to make sure they are not under undue stress. We do blood tests occasionally, but find they do not give the type of real-world information we are looking for. Doing a blood test is like taking your car for a service and the mechanic looking at a drop of oil under a microscope.
Jewellery
Reflexes in the body are designed to avoid danger, especially the danger of sharp objects. We check that nothing you are wearing is irritating your nerves and affecting your muscle strength.
Environment
Sometimes the toxins we are exposed to make us sick.
We check things like perfumes, creams, lotions, make-up, shampoos and toothpastes to help you eliminate the toxic chemicals that could be making you ill.