Monday, July 8, 2013

DIS-stress VS EU-stress: Fundamentals in Neurodevelopmental Disorders

I have recently come to realize that despite the best attempts at providing detail and in-depth analysis, it is often the more simplified analogy or "generalized" understanding that has the most resonance.  Therefore I think it is important to present complex systems (at least at the beginning) in more simplified terms...or in this specific case, outline basic frameworks and fundamentals when it comes to neurodevelopmental disorders.

In the current conventional understanding, STRESS is widely considered as a negative term...however, its true definition is neutral.  Stress can either promote improvement and well-being or contribute to various forms of deterioration.  Within the Fascia Therapy context, eustress is a positive response to any specific stressor.  This can be demonstrated in the biomechanical sense, for example, via the process of mechanotransduction...which is the healthy adaptation and response by a cell to an imposed mechanical stimulus.  In the systemic sense, it is quite easily illustrated in the form of vaccinations...which are essentially carefully moderated doses of select viruses (systemic stressors) which therefore solicit a physiological adaptation and ultimately a stronger immune system.

Until this point, all of this is likely to seem somewhat "un-amazing" and ultimately quite intuitive...but when we consider the challenges of neurodevelopmental delay this simple intuitive understanding needs to evolve into another level of understanding.  Within each of us, there exists an essential repetoire of available systemic and mechanical resources that essentially serve as a "converter"...converting imposed stresses into positive responses or potentially negative ones.  The fundamental reality within the neurodevelopmental disorder context is the following:

There exists an underlying neurological, systemic, and mechanical deficit that essentially "shrinks" the repetoire of available resources.

In more simple terms:  the "converter", or available range of potential eustress response is much more limited. 

  When the systemic and mechanical "converter" is reduced, each imposed stimulus can potentially contribute to deficient or incomplete adaptation, which can result in exaggerated compensatory responses, as well as produce high levels of irritability which ultimately generate a very sensitive and volatile environment.  Therefore, we are confronted with an alarming dilemma:  if imposed stimulus (chemical, emotional, environmental, or mechanical) can generate volatility and DIS-stress response, how do we go about the task of rehabilitation?  The intuitive answer, and the one which is BOTH correct and the overwhelming default, is to attempt to deliver these stresses in th most careful and deliberate fashion.  The specific "doses" of chemical, mechanical, environemental stressed are gauged by what are essentially predetermined standards of application and procedure.  Although I do not disagree with this approach, the effort to enhance and BROADEN ones perspective on the subject only serves to contribute to more effective and diverse strategic options and ultimately better rehabilitative outcomes.


One of the fundamental pillars of the Fascia Therapy concept and philosophy is the incremental and focused strategy of potentiating interstitial fluid flow and the promotion of healthy connective tissue remodelling.  Both of these "targets" are independant of the specific strategy or "technique" because they effectively exists on a more comprehensive and "primitive" level.  In essense, they are the essential elements to the development and maintenance of enhanced systemic and mechanical resources...therefore they contribute to an amplification and broadening of the stress "converter".
This allows for a more diverse range of stimuli being converted into a stress that is efficiently absorbed and distributed...and consequently elicits a positive adaptive response.

In summary, the precise "how" this is done falls into a secondary category...it does not matter as to what specific "technique" is used to stimulate these two fundamental pillars, it only matters that it is done efficiently and with additional focus and attention.

Cheers!

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