[re+think]

As a nice follow up to last month's post, we thought we'd put together a little resource for physical therapists who work with patients with dystonia.  Dystonia is a difficult diagnosis to treat and requires such a broad approach.  Traditional PT has not been shown to benefit those with dystonia.  And the more Julie and I learn, the more we realize this, so we thought it would be nice to put together some resources for physical therapists.  Today's blog includes a treatment approach and ideas for working with patients with cervical dystonia.  It was adapted from the Sensorimotor learning article (actually an article for focal hand dystonia, but with many relevant concepts) by Byl, Archer, McKenzie, 2008 and from our recent course "Sensorimotor Processing Dysfunction and Movement Dysfunction" presented by Byl, McKenzie, and Merzenich in July 2013.  I think it's a nice little jumping off point for a therapist to work with this incredibly challenging diag...

What do you do after spending a weekend immersed in a course with Drs. Nancy Byl, Alison McKenzie and Mike Merzenich, all prominent researchers in the neuroscience and physical therapy worlds? First, you give your brain a break by indulging in fantastic San Francisco vegan cuisine; and then you share it in a blog post!
 Erin and I spent a weekend in July attending a course entitled “Sensorimotor Processing Dysfunction and Movement Dysfunction: Focal Dystonia and Complex Regional Pain Syndromes”.   We spent cold summer San Francisco days at UCSF learning from the masters and wanted to share some of the pearls of wisdom we gained. Though we could write a book about all we learned, we are going to try to condense it to our top 5, here we go: 1) The plastic brain: for better or for worse. For worse: dystonia is aberrant plasticity and learning. For better: we can use the principles of plasticity to improve and drive change!
 2) Principles in treatment fo...