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limitation. For Veterans experiencing pain, this non-intrusive process may be of particular benefit. Like any learning process, success requires repetition and continuity of practice for a new pattern to establish itself.
The restoration of optimal sensorimotor patterns through neuromuscular re-learning, or through the choice of the body-mind or on the nervous system’s terms, contributes greatly to the health of the body by improving joint mobility, circulation, and reducing pain and functional limitation.
Trager’s gentle and subtle approach may also serve those suffering with phantom limb pain associated with amputations. The initial trauma to the body usually produces a variety of protective bracing patterns and subsequent compensatory patterns to aid the body in healing. If these patterns persist after the healing is completed, the potential exists for there to be excessive limitation and sensitivity near the point of
amputation. The Trager Approach in general, helps the body to experience greater integration, helping it release such patterns. This may also assist the nervous system at its subtlest level to decrease the triggering and sensitivity of the portion of the nerve fibers associated with the lost limb.
Painful muscle spasms may be reduced using The Trager Approach. It was shown that 20-minute sessions of Trager Therapy three times per week had a significant impact on the level of spasticity within Parkinson’s patients in a study published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, September 2002 (The Effect of Trager Therapy on the Level of Evoked Stretch Responses in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease and Rigidity by Christian Duval, Denis Lafontaine, Jacques Hebert, Alain Leroux, PhD, Michael Panisset, MD, and Jean P. Boucher, PhD).
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