The McKenzie Technique in Chiropractic Care

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Dr. Steve Minors in Austin, Texas. The name of my clinic is Rehab Effects and today we're going to talk about The McKenzie Technique. The McKenzie Technique was invented by a physical therapist by the name of Robin McKenzie in New Zealand approximately forty years ago. And he just happened to stumble upon this when a patient actually came into his office and Robin McKenzie had his table, his adjusting table and his treatment table set up kind of like a recliner. And the patient lay down on the table face down in a rather awkward position and was there for approximately fifteen or twenty minutes. And when Robin McKenzie came into the room he was quite surprised and felt really bad for the patient thinking that the patient was hurting worse when actually the patient said that he never felt better. And that got him thinking about what was going on with the lumbar spine in the patient?s low back. And if he could somehow improve upon that whole process. And that's how the McKenzie Technique came about. I'm certified in the technique and I'm going to discuss it a little bit more using a model of lumbar spine. With the McKenzie Technique what we are trying to achieve is maximum motion usually in one direction. So it may be up like this, kind of like someone doing a push up. And it could also be someone doing an exercise similar to a crunch several times. When they do this, if they present with low back pain, if they do this several times in one direction the McKenzie Technique is diagnostic in that it tells you whether that particular exercise improved the patients condition or didn't change it at all or made it worse. And it can be therapeutic in that if the patient is better, then they usually will exhibit decreased pain and improved range of motion. And so therefore, when we refer to the McKenzie Technique, we refer to it as Mechanical Diagnostic Therapy. The patient can also present with neck pain and the same may apply. This is the patient looking straight ahead. And if they present with neck pain, the same may occur where the patient is down like this and there neck comes up several times like that. They do that with their neck that may alleviate the pain. It's possible that it could make it worse so if the patient then does it several times going in the other direction it may alleviate the pain. And again that becomes diagnostic and possibly therapeutic. Over the years the McKenzie Technique has improved to where it can be done to virtually in joint in the body. The neck, mid back and low back, tend to be the most common areas that we perform the McKenzie Technique."