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Keywords

Clinician-rated outcome, manual techniques, myofascial release

Abstract

The effectiveness of trigger point release in the suboccipital region to improve hamstring mobility has been established in the literature, but the research has not clarified whether self-administered soft tissue techniques produce the same improvements to mobility as when the clinician delivers the manual trigger point release. The purpose of the study was to assess whether the same increase in hamstring mobility within the superficial backline function that is achieved with a clinician-administered suboccipital trigger point release can also be obtained through a patient/self-administered method. The study employed a randomized, descriptive laboratory design in which 60 participants reported for a single data collection session and were randomly assigned to either a clinician-administered or self-administered treatment group. There was a statistically significant main effect for the intervention (F(1,58) = 18.24, p < .001, eta = .239) indicating that both the clinician-administered and the self-administered groups improved in their hamstring mobility from pretest to posttest; but there was not a statistically significant interaction of time and group (F(1,58) = 18.24, p = .360, eta = .014) indicating that the effectiveness of suboccipital trigger point release on hamstring mobility did not differ between groups. The significant finding in this study is that toe touch distance – indicating improved hamstring mobility – increased for all participants following a suboccipital trigger point release. The significant clinical implication from the study is that improvement in hamstring mobility was similar whether the suboccipital trigger point release was clinician-administered or self-administered. If a clinician properly instructs a patient on how to perform a trigger point release in the suboccipital region, the self-administered intervention can be just as effective at improving hamstring mobility as when the clinician performs the release. This finding allows clinicians to extend the scope of their treatment by empowering patients to effectively treat their own myofascial trigger points.

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