Lumbar manipulations seem to be very aspecific : how can they be functional ?
Indeed, most of them are “aspecific” and this makes them in many cases even more efficient and safer. Before deciding to manipulate we need a valid/useful diagnosis and exactly this is a major problem. Nowadays there seems to be tendency toward “artificial hypercomplication” of many examination and treatment procedures. We have a dream to reach diagnoses as specific as possible (e.g. “a dysfunction between L4 and L5 in left rotation and a secondary locking of the facet joint”). Scientific and clinical reality shows that many of those diagnoses are merely “wishful thinking”, because they are entirely based upon unreliable examination techniques und unrelevant other data. Having an aspecific, but valid and useful, diagnosis such as “internal derangement in the lumbar spine”, one doesnt need specific treatment techniques. If you want to reduce a disc protrusion it can be done more easily and safely by using techniques with a traction component. We create space in order to let the reductio
