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Principles of Manual Medicine

Treatment - Cervical Paraspinal


This soft tissue technique is appropriate for reducing tension in the soft tissues of the cervical spine. For example, sympathetic reflex activity from organs innervated by the cervical sympathetic ganglia often affect the paraspinal muscles of the upper cervical spine. Treating these muscles may reduce sympathetic tone to coronary arteries and may decrease the propensity for bradyarrythmias and AV blocks in the cardiac patient.

Protocol
  • The patient should be positioned supine on the table.
  • The finger pads are placed upon the paravertebral muscles bilaterally, just lateral to the spinus processes. The little fingers are at approximately C2, and the index fingers reach down to approximately C6.
  • Anterior and lateral traction is then applied, making sure that the fingers do not slide across the skin.
  • This position is held until the tissues relax. This may take anywhere from 15 seconds to a minute.


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