Emotional Escapades

What I want to know:

In the healthcare field, there are a lot of modalities used to assist patients in an attempt to stimulate something. In terms of physical therapy, the modalities are used in order to help the patient regain mobility in the injured/fixed area. The “question” that I have posed for myself is how effective is dry needling (trigger point needling) is in the realm of physical therapy? Because just randomly wanting to stick people with needles in sensitive areas is a totally sane thing to do to people.

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What I know or assume:

When a needle that is being placed in a human is mentioned, people’s first thoughts are of acupuncture. Michael, David, and even I have had to explain to patients the difference between acupuncture and dry needling. The main difference is that with dry needling, what you’re doing is stimulating healing and creating micro-trauma while in acupuncture, it’s about moving your chi around and things like that. Dry needling is still a new modality so many states have not allowed their therapists to use it but there are many studies have been finished and are continued showing that it’s not all bogus.

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My search:

My hunt for knowledge in this topic has been quite difficult. As previously stated, many states have denied their therapists the option of dry needling patients which makes it quite difficult for more information but there are still studies released. Other than consulting my mentors, I browsed physical therapy magazines that we had in the clinic along with taking my search online. The obvious site to go to for information is the APTA’s (American Physical Therapists Association) website. I also ventured to other websites in order to find out more information and check for similar information. I came along multiple research paper websites along with many studies, which is what I did some of my annotated bibliographies on.

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What I discovered:

Through speaking with my mentors and doing research, I have come to learn that when it comes to dry needling, there are a lot of factors that go into the process and valid reasons to not do it. For instance, there are obvious health risks if you needle on someone that is pregnant or needling near organs, specifically the lungs when needling the back. On the 14th of March, I was speaking with a patient while he had needles in his heel, feet, and medial shins. He began telling me along with Michael about how he has never had much luck when it came to treatment but when Michael needled him the past week, his pain has improved so much and he was so enthralled. Though dry needling doesn’t yield the same result for everyone, it usually helps more than it harms.