Astym - New options in physical therapy at mcfarland clinic

The McFarland Clinic Physical Therapy department is proud to provide a cutting-edge rehabilitation program to its patients, known as ASTYM. Physical therapists, Leigh Ann Cannon and Tanya Main, share how this program and its unique tools work to heal patients. ASTYM treatment is a form of soft tissue therapy that utilizes tools. The basic idea behind it is to realign the muscle fibers and fibers in the tendons, so it'll help decrease pain and optimize function. We have three different tools that we utilize for the ASTYM treatment. The bigger tool is called "the evaluator," and this is used on the bigger muscle groups on the body. We have a medium-sized tool that we use most often. It's called "the localizer," and then the smaller tool is called "the isolator," where we focus on the tendons around the bony attachments. So, the ASTYM tools catch on irregularities in the muscle tissue and in the tissue in the tendon, and helps smooth it out and realign it for better function. During treatment, what the tools do is it helps to restart the body's natural inflammatory process to help restart the healing, so that's why it works good on chronic conditions. So, we allow the body to heal a couple days in between treatments. It's a cumulative effect, so that's why we do it for at least three weeks, to see the full effect. An ideal candidate for ASTYM treatment is the patients who have had kind of those hard-to-treat conditions, such as chronic tendonitis, things that have failed other types of therapy, other forms of treatments, like cordisone injections. It can be kind of a last-ditch effort, again, to help break down the muscle fiber and the fibers in the tendons and help realign it. The typical protocol for ASTYM treatment is two times a week for about three to four weeks, and after three to four weeks, we have a very good idea if it's going to be helpful or not. The advantages of ASTYM treatment over other types of therapy is that we're actually making physiologic changes to the tissue. To learn more about the advantages of ASTYM, and the Physical Therapy department, go online to mcfarlandclinic.com, or call (515) 956-4095.