Multi-Joint Synergies in Alignment and Coordination

COURSE INTRODUCTION: 

This module evaluates movement patterns to help change muscle function associated to pain, pathology and compromised function.  This evaluation helps therapists towards establishing a more optimised movement system for their patients. The observation and analysis of patterns of muscle synergies in functional tasks is examined and options for retraining more efficient movement strategies are presented. 

COURSE OUTLINE: 

The main focus if this course is to explore functional activities and tasks in patients.  Understanding muscle actions and observing synergist activation patterns can inform clinicians of movement patterns associated with pain and impaired function. Directed cueing for facilitation of more optimal patterns are developed in practical workshops.  

The clinical value of these skills is both immediate and long-term improvements in function and pain. The process clearly directs therapists towards an effective means of managing movement and alignment, so that individuals may pursue pain free lives, avoiding recurrence and secondary complaints. 

KEY FEATURES: 

Enhances ability to assess muscle function through observation of patients’ movement 

patterns during functional tasks 

Develops clinicians’ teaching and cueing skillset of their patients’ movement patterns to influence muscle function associated with pain, pathology and compromised function Combines classic and contemporary evaluation methods with Kinetic Control’s world renowned and innovative movement assessment and retraining 

Gives clinicians the ability to choose movement assessment and retraining as the intervention of choice 

LEARNING OUTCOMES: 

At the end of this course the participant should be 

able to: 

Display an understanding of the relationship between movement patterns, postural alignment and muscle synergies in functional tasks 

Demonstrate the ability to apply a muscle synergy classification model to multi-joint movement challenges 

Demonstrate the ability to assess the efficiency of alignment and movement patterns so as to reduce pain, the impact of pathology and improve function. 

Display an ability to classify individuals into relevant alignment and movement pattern subgroups for the low back, the hip, the neck and the shoulder Display an ability to deliver movement intervention strategies to minimise the negative causes or consequences of alignment change and inefficient movement patterns 

Identify how assessment, analysis and retraining of alignment and movement patterns can be integrated in to their clinical practice 

PROGRAMME OUTLINE: 

How lost ‘choices’ in movement impact synergies and function 

The value of evaluating movement and what it tells us about recruitment patterns between synergists 

Assessing pattern of movement in functional activities 

The value of both static and dynamic alignment in respect to muscle synergies Detailed analysis of muscle function and patterns and changes associated with pain and impaired function 

Practical workshops to enhance cueing to facilitate of more optimal patterns for immediate and long-term improvements in function and pain 

The implication of pain of recruitment thresholds and recruitment synergies Muscle classification and the implication of muscle roles for movement control and co ordination 

Muscle synergy function on alignment at low back and pelvis, hip, neck and shoulder Synergistic patterns in functional activities