Acupuncture: treatment of musculoskeletal conditions

This book is written primarily for musculoskeletal therapists of all types,and will appeal to those who use acupuncture to augment their currentpractice. It will also be of value to acupuncturists specialising in thetreatment of musculoskeletal conditions, and may serve as an introductionto physical treatment methods such as joint mobilisation, therapeuticexercise and taping.I have deliberately placed acupuncture and physical therapy proceduresside by side in Chapters 8, 9 and 10, to allow practitioners to bringacupuncture treatment alongside their current practice. It is my ®rm beliefthat acupuncture greatly increases the eectiveness of physical therapy, butcannot replace it. To combine acupuncture with physical therapy gives afar better clinical outcome than to use either technique in isolation.In this book I have tried to achieve a balance between TraditionalChinese Acupuncture and Western Medical Acupuncture. Physiotherapistsin particular often limit their acupuncture to western needling methodstreating trigger points and local painful areas. Although eective, thisapproach often fails to achieve a long-term result. By appreciating the basicprinciples of Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), acupuncture can beextended to give even greater eects. In addition, by applying TCMprinciples, linked symptoms are often revealed which show a musculoske-letal pain as part of a larger holistic picture of disorder. In many cases thiscan allow the practitioner to identify and treat conditions which could notpreviously be helped by physical therapy.Chapters 1 and 2 give the basics of TCM which can form a foundationfor further study. The description of meridian channels in Chapter 3 andacupuncture points in Chapter 5 take a western anatomical approach.Accurate palpation skills are assumed, and those practitioners who do notpossess these will ®nd that they need to learn or revise surface anatomy tobe able to localise points with precision. Chapter 5 looks at pain from botha traditional Chinese and western medical approach, and highlights thesimilarities and dierences between the two systems. Chapter 6 looks atpatient questioning and point selection and is intended to act as anextension to the subjective examination that therapists already use in theirday to day practice. Chapter 7, describing acupuncture treatment methodsshould act as an introduction and by no means covers all availabletechniques