Plantar Fasciitis for Massage Therapists
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Definition: inflammation of the
plantar fascia of the foot, heel pain
Causes: unbalanced gait with more
stress placed on the injured area usually due to
postural deviations such as scoliosis.
Condition may be aggravated by excess weight, overexertion, overuse, using
before strong enough, bad shoes, flat feet, pronated feet, tight calf muscles,
tight hip muscles and Tensor fascia late.
Signs/Symptoms: pain in heel
at bottom of the foot, usually worse after a period of sitting or inactivity
or worse with first step out of bed in the morning.
Treatments:
- Postural rebalancing and realigning is necessary to take the stress off the area.
- Lengthening the calf muscles,
hip flexors, hip rotators, TFL's, psoas, usually helps.
- Stretching
the same in a home program may be necessary.
- Put shoes by the side of the bed so that you
step into them first thing when you get out of bed to stop reinjuring the
fascia.
- Roll a tennis ball or golf ball under your foot to massage
the bottom of your foot.
- Strengthening the calf muscle is key to
resolving this problem.
- Freeze a water bottle and roll it under
your foot often.
- loose weight
Foot technique:
-
Client supine, practitioner at foot of table
facing bottom of foot
-
Grasp client toes and ball of foot with one
hand and dorsiflex foot, stretching plantar fascia
-
With other hand use knuckle to strip plantar
fascia from top to bottom covering all surface area. Always move
top (ball of foot) to bottom (heel). Repeat everyday until healed.
Icing afterward will usually speed healing process. Apply as much
pressure as client can stand. This is usually very painful.
If the client can stand the pain, the condition will heal faster.
Web resources:
http://heelspurs.com/_intro.html
http://www.arthroscopy.com/sp09001.htm
- anatomy
http://www.aafp.org/afp/20010201/467.html
-stretches
Plantar Fasciitis by Whitney Lowe:
Massage Magazine
Understanding Overpronation By Whitney Lowe, LMT, NCTMB
Saveyourself.ca - guide to plantar fasciitis
Abductor Hallucis By Doug Alexander
Bodywork Techniques for Plantar
Fasciitis- Institute for Integrative Healthcare
Foot and ankle exercises (videos) -massagenerd.com
Google book
excerpts:
Massage for Orthopedic Conditions Thomas Hendrickson
Orthopedic Massage - Whitney Lowe
Heel Pain By Ben Benjamin, PhD
