The Origins of PNMT
Precision Neuromuscular Therapy was created by Douglas Nelson, a massage therapist in Champaign, Illinois. Many influences from multiple disciplines went into the creation of this form of hands-on treatment. PNMT has its foundation in many decades of history and the pioneering work of many therapists.
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What makes PNMT special is the way that all this information is organized into a very practical and pragmatic approach to manual / massage therapy. In the end, results matter far more than philosophies of treatment. Grounded in decades of seeing thousands of clients, Doug and each of the PNMT instructors bring real-world clinical experience to the work.
What is Precision Neuromuscular Therapy?
Precision Neuromuscular Therapy is a highly precise, hands-on, problem-solving approach to muscular pain and discomfort. It comes out of the discipline of massage therapy, but its purpose is to address the myriad of muscular problems that impact people on a day-to-day basis.
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The skill sets necessary to do this work require the therapist to have an excellent anatomical understanding and the clinical skills to create real and lasting results. If your therapist has had extensive training with us, you can be assured that they have the requisite background to help you.
The "Why" behind PNMT
The sad truth is that people who struggle with soft-tissue pain often fall through the cracks of our healthcare system. What is meant by soft tissue? Muscles, tendons, fascia, and ligaments comprise the soft tissues of the body.
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The statistics on musculoskeletal pain are significant. It is the second-most common reason for people to seek medical care and one of the single largest expenses in all of health care.
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If you are reading this, chances are that you are already too familiar with the problem. Let's explore a bit more in depth.
Felt, But Not Seen
In the older model of medical care, the cause of pain could be seen, identified, and then eliminated. This is a wonderful idea, but the reality is often the opposite. Quite often, the pain that people experience is not something that can be seen on a diagnostic image. Or, there may be degenerative changes seen in the image, but there is no way to know if those findings are connected to the present experience of pain.
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Perhaps the best example of this is low back pain. If you have unrelenting pain, you are likely to have an MRI at some point, and that MRI may show degenerative disc disease or problems with a disc protrusion. However, these same degenerative changes are commonly seen in people with no symptoms. This is not to mean that MRI's aren't helpful or necessary, but it does mean that the direct relationship between what is seen and what is felt is not a given.
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It is important to also consider the many ways that soft tissue conditions can be responsible for much of the pain that people experience. Our direct hands-on approach is a reasonable strategy to explore this possibility.