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Hi, my name is Dr. Steve Minors in Austin, Texas. The name of my clinic is Rehab Effects
and today we're going to talk about The McKenzie Technique. The McKenzie Technique was invented
by a physical therapist by the name of Robin McKenzie in New Zealand approximately forty
years ago. And he just happened to stumble upon this when a patient actually came into
his office and Robin McKenzie had his table, his adjusting table and his treatment table
set up kind of like a recliner. And the patient lay down on the table face down in a rather
awkward position and was there for approximately fifteen or twenty minutes. And when Robin
McKenzie came into the room he was quite surprised and felt really bad for the patient thinking
that the patient was hurting worse when actually the patient said that he never felt better.
And that got him thinking about what was going on with the lumbar spine in the patient?s
low back. And if he could somehow improve upon that whole process. And that's how the
McKenzie Technique came about. I'm certified in the technique and I'm going to discuss
it a little bit more using a model of lumbar spine. With the McKenzie Technique what we
are trying to achieve is maximum motion usually in one direction. So it may be up like this,
kind of like someone doing a push up. And it could also be someone doing an exercise
similar to a crunch several times. When they do this, if they present with low back pain,
if they do this several times in one direction the McKenzie Technique is diagnostic in that
it tells you whether that particular exercise improved the patients condition or didn't
change it at all or made it worse. And it can be therapeutic in that if the patient
is better, then they usually will exhibit decreased pain and improved range of motion.
And so therefore, when we refer to the McKenzie Technique, we refer to it as Mechanical Diagnostic
Therapy. The patient can also present with neck pain and the same may apply. This is
the patient looking straight ahead. And if they present with neck pain, the same may
occur where the patient is down like this and there neck comes up several times like
that. They do that with their neck that may alleviate the pain. It's possible that it
could make it worse so if the patient then does it several times going in the other direction
it may alleviate the pain. And again that becomes diagnostic and possibly therapeutic.
Over the years the McKenzie Technique has improved to where it can be done to virtually
in joint in the body. The neck, mid back and low back, tend to be the most common areas
that we perform the McKenzie Technique.