Healing Strains and Pains
Graston Technique may help you recover from injuries
Dr. Edward Le Cara utilizes the Graston Technique on a patient who sustained a lumbar disc injury.
Photograph by Lane Johnson
If you’ve ever repeatedly strained a muscle or developed scar tissue after surgery, you may know that one common side effect is being less flexible in that injured area while your body heals. That can be a hindrance for athletes and those accustomed to an active lifestyle.
To help restore movement, break down scar tissue, and reduce the need for anti-inflammatory medication, many physical therapists, chiropractors, and physicians are turning to the Graston Technique, a method of soft-tissue therapy pioneered in the 1990s by an athlete suffering from a knee injury.
“The Graston Technique can be used on any soft tissue condition, [including] acute muscle strains, muscle adhesions from old injuries, and chronic muscular conditions,” says Dr. Edward Le Cara of Sports Plus, a chiropractic practice with offices in Pleasanton and Santa Clara.
Health professionals trained in the Graston Technique use a collection of six stainless steel tools to help to identify troubled areas. As the practitioner applies the tools to injured areas of a patient’s body, the tools catch easily on fibrotic tissue (inflamed tissue that has become scarred). The tools are then used to massage the recovering area.
This non-invasive therapy stretches connective tissue and increases blood flow to the healing area, practitioners say, which in turn speeds rehabilitation and helps bring patients relief.
Dr. Steve Capobianco, of Symmetry Sports Injury and Performance Care in Los Gatos, says the technique “is appropriate during all phases of healing, from immediately following trauma to the remodeling phases when scar tissue is well formed.”
The six instruments are shaped differently to treat various parts of the body. “Some are broad to aid treatment of large, flat regions, and others are pointed to maximize treatment between bony areas,” Capobianco says. Professionals trained in the Graston Technique work on injured body parts ranging from patients’ aching backs to the palms, forearms, and hands of those with carpal tunnel syndrome.
The frequency of recommended treatments depends on the condition being treated, says Le Cara. “Certain conditions require only one treatment. Chronic conditions can take longer,” he says. Most acute strains require two to four visits, and chronic conditions can require between six and eight visits, he says.
Le Cara also noted that research published in The Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy in July 2009 demonstrated that instrument-assisted massage hastened healing times. “The patient does have to tolerate a little discomfort during treatment, but when paired with Kinesio taping and rehabilitation exercises, healing is found to be much faster than the traditional ‘wait and see’ method of most soft tissue injuries,” he says. Kinesio taping is a method of applying specialized tape to certain parts of the body to give support and stability to joints and muscles.
Not all health professionals agree that the Graston Technique is good medicine, however. One critic is Dr. Harriet Hall, one of the founders of the Science-Based Medicine blog, who wrote that the technique introduces “a controlled amount of microtrauma into an area of excessive scar and/or soft tissue fibrosis, hoping that this will invoke an inflammatory response that will augment the healing process.” In her critique at sciencebasedmedicine.org, Hall questions whether the Graston Technique’s effectiveness has been studied sufficiently.
Tools used in the Graston Technique are sold only to those who have been trained to use them. For more information as well as a directory of practitioners, visit grastontechnique.com.
