Cranial-Sacral Therapy
What is Cranial Therapy?
Cranial therapy is subspecialty of osteopathic manipulative medicine preformed by a cranial therapy practitioner. This subspecialty deals with subtle motions of the body through the cranio- sacral mechanism. It is gentle and powerful system, part of osteopathic medicine, that uses the patient?s own inherent forces to overcome membranous, articulator, and ligamentous strains in the body.
What does a manual practioner do?
The first step in any consultation is to listen to the patient explain the reasons for the visit and go through his or her history.
Then the practioner looks at any available data (X-ray, lab test results. This informatiobles the practioner to determine how urgent the patient's condition is , th rest of consultation is devoted to:
Observing and inspecting the patient's vertical posture, distribution of the body weight, posture tensions, contractures, the quality of the tissues and skin, etc
Performing general, regionaland local functional tests, passive, active and specific tests depending on the objective and evaluation.
Palpating the patient?s tissues and physiological rhythms to ascertain the severity of osteo-articular blocks and muscle tensions.
Identifying the causes and developing the treatment plan Considering health, age and vitality.
Performing the manual treatment in accordance with a number of objective:
to treat the causes of the disorders.
Most patients begin to feel a real difference after two or three sessions, although five to eight treatments are required in the majority of the cases to eliminate the root of the patient's problem.
to restoe the proper mobility of the body that protect and maintain balance and health.
to treat patient on the basis of his or her complaints and wishes (pain, functional restrictions, somatic, etc.)
The Cranial Sacral and the Primary Respiratory Mechanism.
The bones that form the skull and all body tissue are characterized by a very fine movement inherent rhythmic -12 cycles per minute - that is independent of the individual's heart beat and respiration rate.
The manual practioner uses the trained proprioceptive properties of his or her hand to "LISTEN" to measure very precisely the quantity and the quality of the micro-movements of the cranial sutures and the amount of endocranial pressure. The objective is to restore the mobility and the primary respiratory mechanism to help the vascular, nervous and neuronal tissues to perform their functions.