Excerpt from Total Postural Reprogramming (TPR)
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Total Posture Reprogramming (TPR)
By Bernard Bricot, MD
INTRODUCTION
In this ever-changing world, one thing is becoming constant: health care is extremely expensive, it does not always provide satisfactory treatment and rarely does it cure. Many are the pathologies whose treatment is basically symptomatic.
Current trends now consider a variety of symptoms to be inevitable over time and the therapeutic approaches selected to address them follow suit: a gamut of anti-symptoms therapies that can be best described as suppressive rather than curative.
This observation could be no true or more amply substantiated than in the treatment of a wide array of complaints ranging from degenerative joint disease (DJD) to scoliosis or disk herniation in which the mechanical factor, while absolutely crucial, is seldom considered.
A prolapsed disk may suddenly be caused by a clumsy movement or by an effort in rotation. But, oblique or twisting strain applied to that disk over a number of years is really what has caused the degeneration of the nucleus pulposus and weakened the posterior vertebral ligament. The resulting hernia in the neural canal is simple the terminal expression of an underlying chronic condition.
Scoliosis is not unavoidable. It is a disease of the postural system. Waiting for a breakdown of the spinal column to pose a diagnosis is waiting until after the damage has been done. Treating scoliosis with a corset without understanding the postural system is preparing the ground for a disappointing therapeutic result.
The above pathologies and many others share the same origin: abnormal strains caused by an imbalance in the tonic postural system and its various receptors. These strains will cause tilts and rotations in various parts of the skeleton and joints. They will also generate abnormal strains on the joint capsules, cartilaginous surfaces and ligaments. These strains are responsible for various chronic, painful pathologies and are the reason for many consultations.
Though they can be credited for being less iatrogenic than previous ones, it remains true that 47.6% of the French population suffer from back pain resulting in a loss of 26,000,000 work days yearly. In the US, the percentage of back pain sufferers stands even higher at a staggering 57% with over an estimated 10 billion work days lost yearly to this almost ubiquitous complaint. Back pain and rheumatic pain are an enormous burden on our national healthcare budgets. This enormous price paid reflects the results of a symptomatic treatment approach across the board. The situation is identical in other European countries.
The growing popular appeal of manipulative therapies has changed nothing in these statistics. Resetting a vertebra is fine; knowing why a vertebra is out of alignment is better.
Our study of the tonic postural system has enabled us to better understand and identify the different associated pathologies and to tackle them by using more etiological treatments based on resetting the body's dysregulated postural sensors. This is why we call our modality Total Postural Reprogramming (TPR).
We have not invented a new medicine but, a new way of looking at medicine. This study of the different receptors (or data input) of the postural system and their dysregulation will give us the opportunity to draw from and combine different medical specialities. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the inner ear is NOT that which, in adulthood, enables us to position ourselves in space, or determine our position with regard to our environment. Rather, this is the work of the three other specialized systemic sensors. In order of priority, the are: the feet, the eyes and the skin.
Total Postural Reprogramming (TPR) is indicated not merely in cases of back pain and rhematic pain, but also in a wide variety of pathologies that account for a substantial part of consultations to both general practitioners and specialists.