FROM NEURAL TENSION TO CLINICAL NEURODYNAMICS. NEW SYSTEM FOR APPLICATION OF NEURAL TESTING AND TREATMENT TECHNIQUES

Abstract

 This article focuses on the establishment of the basis of the neurodynamic concept and describes some of the most relevant mechanisms for the study of the nervous system’s biomechanics. As a profession which is dedicated to the study of function and movement, physical therapy, and within it, neurodynamic, has to know the biomechanics and the mechanisms which produce movement in the nervous system. Only in this way is it possible to perform diagnoses and treatments which are specifically directed to the causal mechanisms of our patients. When, as clinical physical therapists, we approach a field as wide as the neurodynamic is, it is basic to determine the most ap-propriate depth level in which we stop our analysis. It has to have enough depth as to allow the establishment of the physiological bases of neurodynamic, however, it has to stop before the specificity of the techniques used is reduced by excess. The approach of neural mobilization has experimented great progress during the last decades, thanks to the input of many authors. In the analogy with the approach to other structures, such as the muscle or the joint, the initial approaches known as «adverse neural tension», or «neural mobilization» where focused exclusively in the treatment of the mechanical component of the nervous system, by the application of techniques which had the aim of lengthening neural structures. The development of these approaches has allowed the nervous systems’ evaluation and treatment conceptualization to expand. The introduction of the Clinical Neurodynamics concept, by Michael Shacklock, is one of the aspects which has best contributed to its development. The inclusion of aspects such as the physiology of the nervous system has been the main input of this new conceptualization, aspects which have been omitted in previous approaches.