The Big Back Book: Tips & Tricks for Therapists

by Jane Johnson

Overview

For any therapist who has been challenged by a client complaining of pain or stiffness in the neck or back, The Big Back Book: Tips&Tricks for Therapists is packed with ideas and suggestions for the assessment, treatment, and aftercare of the spine. The author shares tips gathered from many years of experience as a physical therapist and massage therapist, providing step-by-step guidance on everything from testing range of motion and documenting findings, to locating specific muscles and vertebrae, to identifying the source of pain and managing posture and muscle tone issues. With a clear and conversational writing style and easy-to-follow organization of chapters, this book allows readers to gain valuable insights and immediately apply techniques into practice.

Highlights:

• Organizes material by sections on cervical spine, thoracic spine, and lumbar spine with each section following a consistent format to aid in quick reference of needed information
• Presents commonly asked questions, answered by the author, throughout the text
• Offers helpful hints for encouraging client self-care
• Includes useful tables, forms, checklists, and questionnaires to optimize treatment outcomes
• Clarifies methods and concepts with more than 900 simple line drawings

The wealth of practical advice and information contained within makes The Big Back Book: Tips&Tricks for Therapists a must-have volume for massage therapists, physical therapists, and osteopaths with clients seeking relief from neck and back pain. Practitioners and students alike will enhance their knowledge and expand their repertoire of assessment and treatment techniques.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783132048317
Publisher:	Thieme
Publication date:	10/12/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	464
File size:	24 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Sean P Easley, PT, DPT, OCS (U.S. Navy)
Description: This is a handy, easily-referenced compilation of tips and tricks for assessment and treatment of the spine. Section topics are divided into cervical, thoracic, and lumbar regions. This nearly pocket-sized book is a useful primer of hands-on techniques. The emphasis on soft tissue manual therapy and the author's background as a massage and physical therapist is clearly evident.
Purpose: The author's purpose is to share thoughts and experiences gathered through many years of active practice and present feedback and answer questions that arose during seminars and courses she has conducted on assessment and treatment of the spine. These are worthy objectives and they are successfully accomplished. The author does not attempt to make a strong case for evidence-based practice, but instead provides a set of readily-applicable assessment and treatment techniques which have, in her experience, demonstrated effectiveness.
Audience: This author does not target a specific audience with this book, though discerning readers might conclude that an advanced or fellowship-prepared clinician might be looking for more in the way of evidence-based practice. A practitioner interested in myofascial and soft-tissue techniques without demanding a theoretical amount of information will find this book particularly helpful. The author's extensive experience as a certified massage therapist prior to becoming a physiotherapist makes her a credible authority in discussing the benefits of these techniques.
Features: The book is simply divided into three sections covering the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine, with three chapters in each section on assessment, treatment, and aftercare. Each area is conveniently demarcated by three different color-coded blocks along the margin, making quick reference easier for readers. The book also uses a very simple yet effective style of line drawing for the ample illustrations. This makes learning the manual techniques very easy to comprehend. Tables with blank spaces are used to encourage readers to record their own notes about the use of particular techniques on different patients to allow for practice and reflection on their own experiences. Practitioners hoping to find a significant amount of information on manipulative or high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust treatments of the spine may find this book lacking in that regard. The primary focus of this book is on soft tissue mobilization with some joint mobilization.
Assessment: This should be considered a useful quick reference for practitioners hoping to improve their manual skills for non-thrust/manipulative treatments for the three spinal regions. It is not intended as a comprehensive textbook on spinal anatomy or biomechanics, but rather an easy-to-use reference to encourage the practice of manual techniques rooted in massage therapy and soft tissue mobilization approaches. Readers seeking in-depth information on spinal anatomy or pathology, manipulation, and biomechanics no doubt have many other choices. This author limits her efforts to an area with which she has had many years of treatment and teaching experience.

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