Course Description

Movement is a foundation of physiotherapy rehabilitation. A sub group of patients have very poor coordination and this can interfere with traditional rehab (e.g., eloquently termed “motor morons” in Canada). Other patients just seem to have tightness in muscles that does not go way. This can be due to retained primitive reflexes.

“It’s too simple – If someone has a problem with movement,

go back to when they learned how to move”

Primitive reflex inhibition are very gentle and easy to use strategies that can be applied right away in the clinic.

Primitive reflexes (PR) are brain stem-mediated, complex automatic movement patterns that commence in utero.  If PR are present they will influence normal motor control and can interfere with normal rehabilitation. There are numerous causes of PR being present in neurologically intact adults (e.g., atypical birth history or developmental milestones especially walking and crawling; concussion). Numerous conditions are known to have retained primitive reflexes (e.g., ADHD, Developmental Coordination Disorder, dyslexia, addictions, scoliosis, DM, chronic LBP, chronic WAD, post concussion syndrome, chronic shoulder pain, stroke, TBI).

The treatment of primitive reflexes can be used clinically in different ways to :

• reduce individual muscle tone in chronically short muscles (e.g., hamstrings, gastrocnemius)
• increase range of motion (e.g., upper cervical flexion, glenohumeral joint medial rotation)
• improve general coordination (e.g., clumsiness, proprioception, postural stability)
• target specific problems (e.g., toe walkers, some torticollis)
• facilitate pelvic floor rehab (e.g., pelvic floor asymmetry)
• improve motor imagery (e.g., midline and musculoskeletal body image deficits)
• normalize muscle tone (e.g., stroke)

During this course we will cover the assessment and rehabilitation of PR in detail. Strategies for treatment in the clinic and home exercise will be covered.  Specific examples will be used to show how primitive reflex inhibition can immediately improve movement and motor behavior.

The course material has other uses for neurology, concussion, pediatrics and in helping regular clients learn exercises more quickly.

There are no pre-requisites for this course

Clinic host: Leading Edge Physiotherapy