Who Should Attend

Scientists and health care and fitness professionals who wish to learn more about the latest scientific research on fasciae. Bringing together the most recent solid research on the properties of the fascial fabric with those who observe its workings in the clinical setting informs and energizes both groups toward further developments in this growing field.

Primary audiences include:

Scientists who are either engaged or interested in –

Biomechanics of ligaments and other dense fibrous connective tissues Biomedical research Connective tissue research Gait & postural dynamics Matrix biology Musculoskeletal dynamics Orthopaedics Rehabilitation Rheumatology Sports medicine

Clinicians who address fascia, including –

Acupuncturists Athletic Trainers Chiropractors (DC’s) Energetic, hands-on healers (Therapeutic Touch) Exercise Teachers Massage Therapists Naprapaths Nutritionists Osteopaths Personal Trainers Physiatrists and other physicians practicing neuromusculoskeletal medicine or manual medicine Physical Therapists (PT’s) Practitioners of Structural Integration (e.g., Rolfers®) Prolotherapists (Sclerotherapy) Rehabilitation Specialists Veterinarians

The centerpiece of this conference is the presentation of the latest and best scientific fascia research from around the world. The Fascia Research Congress is a valuable resource of data, new ideas, and networking for researchers, medical professional and clinical practitioners.

IMPLICATIONS FOR CLINICIANS

There is increasing interest in the role of fascia in musculoskeletal strain disorders such as low-back instability, fibromyalgia, pelvic pain, and respiratory dysfunction. Additionally, our understanding of fascia is advancing therapeutic approaches to wound healing, trauma recovery and repair, and postural strain patterns. With this in mind, the FRC seeks to present our best understanding of fascia’s biomechanical and adaptive properties that account for clinical observations in health and dysfunction.

The expanding research on human and animal fascial tissues forms a body of knowledge that is pertinent to a wide range of professionals engaged in both conventional and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) modalities. FRC research advances the practical understanding of the therapeutic mechanisms operating in manual therapies and CAM modalities which contact, mechanically manipulate, penetrate, or otherwise involve fascial tissues.

The clinician’s interest in fascia extends to new scientific findings in the following categories:

• The presence of contractile cells (myofibroblasts) within the fascial fabric. Clinicians are interested in the role of these cells in creating contractile tonus in the fascial fabric, how they form, what ‘turns them on’, and their influence on passive muscle tonus.
• Biomechanical properties of fascial tissues: creep, relaxation, hysteresis, effect of sustained spinal flexion on lumbar tissues, strain induced hydration changes, myofascial release manipulation, fascial viscoelastic deformation, and more.
• Mechanotransduction between the cytoskeletal structure within the cell and the extracellular matrix, and its implications for health and disease.
• Forms of communication within the fascial matrix, such as the tugging in the mucopolysaccharides created by twisting acupuncture needles.
• How fascia is innervated, and how proprioception and pain are created, detected and modulated by the spinal cord and the rest of the nervous system.
• Other new findings and significant hypotheses in the realms of biochemistry and biomechanics of fascial deformation and reformation.