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PR® Treatment involves harmonizing the coordination of consciously willed muscle activity with unconscious postural muscle tone. This is accomplished by executing conscious actions (‘maneuvres’) that have been designed to solicit and even exaggerate the work of muscle tone throughout the body as whole.
Suzanne Chenier, BScPT
Physiotherapy
Postural Reconstruction®
Postural Reconstruction®
The management of normal postural tone occurs by autonomic processes stemming from the sub-cortical or reflex/ unconscious parts of the brain. It is stimulated by our interaction with the environment around us. The brain is constantly calibrating as a function of this interaction while working to economize energy output. And it is like a computer’s history log. All these interactions with the environment are stored and affect how the body works. Unfortunately, it is not possible to simply delete this history with something as quick as a click of a mouse. The neuro-muscular techniques of Postural Reconstruction® have developed a means to get around this system. To bring about change, we must put the brain right up against its paradoxes and fatigue the system…..
Postural Reconstruction® (PR®) Physiotherapy is based on the work of French physiotherapist, Françoise Mézières, who developed her method «the Mézières Method» of morphological reconstruction in 1949. Through her careful observations, she learned how the body’s musculoskeletal system functions globally. From her analysis, she developed her unique approach to treat the body comprehensively, as a whole. She coined a phrase “restore the form in order to restore the function”. Her meaning was that if one concentrated on rehabilitating a healthy state of the soft tissues of the body, the form would restore itself and improved function would naturally follow.
Michael Nisand, a long-time student of hers, took over instruction of this method after her passing, associated it with the continuing education programming of the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France and re-named the technique Postural Reconstruction®. He worked tirelessly on educating willing physiotherapists internationally until a few years ago.
Postural Reconstruction® (PR®) is defined as a neuromuscular technique based on the concept that tonic imbalance in the muscular chains of the body leads to muscular shortening causing postural deformations, structural alterations, mechanical dysfunction, movement pattern disorder and pain.
The four Muscle Chains as identified by Mézières and Nisand
Mme. Mézières developed 6 basic laws to describe various repeatable phenomena she observed in the bodies of her patients. These laws directed the method she developed. It is based on the notion that certain muscles are organized in, what in PR® is known as, a muscle chain. A muscle chain is defined as a set of poly-articular muscles, oriented in the same direction and overlapping like tiles on a roof. There are four recognized muscle chains (see illustration - 3 named by Mézières and 1 by Michael Nisand) . The anterior chain of the lumbar area is an example of the overlapping nature of origin-insertion determining a muscle’s inclusion in this functional system. It includes the diaphragm and iliopsoas - two muscles which overlap on the anterior surface of the spine (3). These groups of muscle function like a single muscle performing a postural role in addition to their individual muscular roles.
You might be asking what is postural tone of muscle? Postural tone is defined as the level of contraction that exists in muscles at rest. Normal tone is that quality of muscle which is under the control of the sub-cortical brain and is present always, fluctuating depending on what the body is doing. What PR® treatment is concerned with is hypertonicity, a spontaneous, systematic, and non linear increase of the basal (at rest) muscle tone in the muscle chain(s).
The muscle chains, throughout a lifetime, are more likely to see their tone increase creating hypertonicity. This comes about as a result of regular use and as a result of traumatic events. Traumatic events can include thermal, hormonal, chemical, emotional as well as physical events.
20-minute video that explains and shows these concepts.
A Physiotherapist trained in PR® will evaluate the static postural alignment - where your body has come to be organized over time. This is followed by some movement assessment using specific actions that have been designed to target the coordinated activity of the muscle chains. The assessment provides important information about how to work on any individual body. All the maneuvres or therapeutic actions are done together with the therapist within the working session.
For more information about the organization and activities of practitioners in France providing ongoing continuing education in Postural Reconstruction®, please go to www.reconstruction-posturale.com