Massage Therapy This Report Aims

Massage Therapy

This report aims to describe how massage can be used to affect changes in the Golgi tendon organs and muscle spindle cells. It has taken mankind many thousands of years to get a true grasp of the human body's complexities and not surprisingly, science has still not completely unraveled all of the body's inert mysteries. However, we humans are getting closer to understand the intricate functions of our bodies. For example, one modern discovery has helped us make vast strides in the study of anatomy. The relationship between the Peripheral Nervous System which consists of the cranial and spinal nerves and the Central Nervous System which consists of the brain and spinal chord have been discovered to be the body's mechanism for maintaining musculoskeletal integrity by utilizing sensory and motor neurons. Massage has been used as a therapeutic technique by physical therapists for many years but, until recently, there has been little scientific proof that the effect of massage is actually a form of muscle relaxation or stimulation. Thus, recent research has suggested that certain types of massage can inhibit the activity of a muscle's spinal motor neurons.

Massage therapists should be aware that certain techniques for stretching muscles like kneading may cause activity in the massaged muscle. The Golgi tendon organs are a proprioceptive sensory nerve endings embedded among the fibers of a tendon and muscles. The Golgi tendon organs become activated when a tendon is contracted through muscle manipulation. "Stimulus for Golgi tendon organs is mechanical deformation generally in the form of a muscle contraction originally thought to be high threshold receptors very sensitive to actively generated muscle force." (HHP, 2004) In other words, if a massage therapist was to change the length of the muscle through manipulation, that action would increase tension on the muscle because the Golgi tendon organs would become active. Golgi tendon organs therefore are receptors that in part prevent excessive stress to joints by acting as reflex inhibitors.

Like the Golgi tendon organs, muscle spindle cells are sensory organs where proprioceptive neuron fibers terminate in muscles and therefore are the body's way of delivering messages to the central nervous system from the muscle. Muscle spindle cells are located in the bodies of muscles and are usually wrapped around sensory nerve fiber endings in muscle fibers. The muscle spindle cells' main purpose is to monitor when a muscle is either at rest or being stretched. Muscle spindle cells may even measure the length and speed of the change in a muscle. "Responding to small displacements & after-effects spindle output to a given amount of stretch is not always constant series of rapid stretches, the response to a slow test stretch depends on the length at which muscle was held after stretches ex. If muscle is elongated for several seconds then returned to initial length, the response is smaller with longer latency when given test stretch compared to when the muscle is returned to its initial length after series of stretches - more slack in sensory region." (HHP, 2004) The human body uses these muscle spindle cells in a type of balancing act. If a person were to lean left than the muscles on one side of the body would contract while the muscles on the other side of the body would stretch. The message from both sides of the body in turn would be sent through the spinal cord to the brain and therefore the body is able to maintain an erect posture. Through massage, the muscle spindle cells would be quite active as the constant stimuli from a massage would contract and stretch muscles.