McKenzie?disc or neural?
Reference:Breig A 1978 Adverse mechanical tension in the central nervous system. Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm
The spinal canal goes through a significant length change going from maximal spinal extension to maximal spinal flexion. From spinal extension to flexion, the spinal canal elongates approximately 5-9 cm (Breig 1978)
Perhaps this is another hypothesis explaining why the ?McKenzie approach? works! Doesn?t it make sense that if a patient has a sensitized nervous system, related to a disc or any reason for that matter, would not like repeated spinal flexion since the dura is getting stretched?
Doesn?t it also make sense that a patient with a sensitized nervous system would potentially get symptomatic relief from spinal extension since the stress on the dura is reduced?
Personal Comment:Could it be that sometimes the effectiveness of the McKenzie approach has little to do with intra-discal pressure and migration of the nucleus pulposis?
Could it be that repeated lumbar or cervical extensions are sometimes highly effective because they are simply unloading the nervous system??something to think about!
Posted on: April 02, 2002
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