What is Functional Manipulative Therapy?

Manipulative Therapy is designed to restore bones of the foot to their proper position, correcting misalignments that have occurred because of injuries or chronic conditions, in the process freeing adhesions which have been constraining normal lymphatic fluid, and inhibiting normal foot function. It is not a chiropractic technique, though this misunderstanding has led some allopathic physicians to ignore the practice. Rather, Functional Manipulative Therapy is osteopathic in origin. Functional Manipulative Therapy is a skill that podiatric medical physicians can acquire without excessive effort, and that can bring more patients and fresh income into languishing podiatric medical practices.

It can, and probably should, be used on as many as 80 percent of the patients in a conventional podiatric medical/surgical practice.

What is the purpose of Functional Manipulative Therapy?

"Comfort varies directly with function" is a phrase that Dr. Tikker repeats frequently. Put another way, the human body, and particularly the foot, is at its most comfortable state when it is functioning properly.

Consider the sprained ankle. In the hands of an experienced podiatric physician, manipulative therapy places the bones in their proper position, and swelling and pain subside dramatically, to the extent that patients who would ordinarily wait several weeks for relief can be on their feet in several days.

Chronic problems such as heel and metatarsal pain, tired aching feet, and joint infiltration and adhesions should be treated by manipulative therapy, and the functional aversion relieved for better foot mobility. Manually setting the bones in their proper position starts a free flow of fluid through lymphatic channels to promote healing. Many cases of bursitis, usually a symptom of inadequate mechanical function, also heal spontaneously with the therapy.