Primal Reflex Release Technique Video

Air date: March 8, 2011
For more information: Primal Reflex Release Technique and Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center

Transcript

Erica Fox, Fox 5 anchor: Taking charge of chronic pain, there's a new treatment that's available here in town. Fox 5's Heather Ford is in Chula Vista with the details.

Heather Ford, Fox 5 reporter: People with chronic pain would normally go to a physical therapist or chiropractor — you've probably seen it happen before — but now we're talking about a new type of therapy that's happening here at Sharp Chula Vista and it's called PRRT, or primal reflex release technique. Our physical therapist on hand is Tara O'Kelly and Tara, you've been telling us all about this technique. Sometimes it looks like you're hitting, slapping or pinching him, which looks very unusual, but you say that this is really helping a lot of patients that just can't figure out what their pain is coming from.

Tara O'Kelly, physical therapist, Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center: Right. In Devon's situation, he had knee surgery, but quite often, the pain and tension in his body will extend all the way down into his foot, up into his hip, into his back and even cause tension in the shoulders and face because of the pain involved.

Heather: Great. So what I'm understanding is that even if it was just the pain that you say is, for him, "Hey, it's in my knee and it's hurting me," it's not about just treating the knee, it's about starting with the reflexes from the top down.

Tara: Right. Some people aren't even aware that they're maintaining tension throughout their body, into their shoulders and into their face. With PRRT, we start with a one-minute, quick body scan to identify areas throughout the body that may be holding tension, which can ultimately lead to pain.

Heather: OK, so what are you doing to him right now?

Tara: Right now, he still has some tightness and restriction at the back of his knee, so we compare it to the other side. This one is moving freely and this one is not, so we have some techniques that will help fix this.

Tara to Devon: Hold your foot there and don't let me move.

Heather: Does it have any similarities with reflexology?

Tara: No, it's nothing like reflexology. We're trying to reflexively inhibit one area or group of muscles that might be in spasm and in order to do that, we'll activate another group of muscles.

Heather: OK, so how are you doing that with his knee?

Tara: For example, if we check him here in his hip and he has some issues in this muscle, this muscle is usually involved in turning the hip outwards, so what we'll do is reflexively try to activate the opposite muscles. Then we'll go back and check again and quite often, we'll find that this muscle, this spasm and tension, has been released.

Heather: Yeah, I see him shaking his head. So Devon, none of that hurts? That feels good? It's relief?

Devon, Sharp Chula Vista patient: It's relief and it's almost a euphoric feeling, seriously, because you walk around, you don't realize you have pain, and when it's released, it's like [sigh], it’s great.

Heather: And you've been doing this for how long?

Devon: A couple months now, but it started from the first treatment. They call it magic around here. People come from all over to see Tara with this therapy. It's really good.

Heather: All right, well, thank you so much Devon. We've got the information for PRRT on our website: fox5sandiego.com. Just click on the "Seen On" tab. For now, I'm going to send it back to you guys in the studio.

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