MAT: Beating Pain at its Own Game!

From June 6 to 8, a workshop on this technique was conducted by Dr. Eric Dalton, the executive director of the Freedom From Pain Institute, at the Cooper Aerobic Center in Dallas, Texas USA. The Freedom From Pain Institute is dedicated to the research and treatment of chronic pain conditions. In 1989, a traumatic neck injury spurred a self-healing inquiry into the neurologic relationship between muscles and joints, spinal biomechanical therapy. Throughout the next decade, Dalton interned with leading manipulative osteopaths which prompted the integration of osteopathic principles into his structural integration practice. Thus, the seeds for his Myoskeletal Alignment Techniques were planted.

There were 60 participants during the workshop, which included chiropractors (those who diagnose and treat patients with health problems of the musculoskeletal system and treat the effects of those problems on the nervous system and on general health), neurosurgeons, somatic therapists and nurses. Among the international participants was Melche Caudor, a somatic therapist, who was the only Filipino. All of them were made to do the manual manipulation technique. The five-minute myoskeletal assessment routines are intentionally simplified to save time and allow them to be performed on the massage table in a typical bodywork massage format. Neck and low back structures are then addressed in a precise order with special attention given to the type of tissue being manipulated.

Economic researchers agree that the manual therapy field is the fastest growing of all service industries. Touch therapies, such as oriental bodywork, deep tissue massage, neuromuscular, structural integration, and assisted stretching, are becoming the holistic protocol for the aches and pains so affluent in all walks of life. Why? The answer is simple, they work!