The Use Of Grasp Technique In Focal Dystonia

Hello Alan, I'm a guy suffering from focal hand dystonia because of some inappropriate piano training. Recently I came across a youtube video () in which you were trying to get your student being conscious of the metacarpophalangeal joints. If I understand correctly, you told the student to roll the finger in order to feel the MCP and you said that usually you told people to make the fingers flat to get that feeling. That is exactly what I use to feel the MCP and after using this technique I feel that my fingers are much more flexible (they are very light) than before and I could feel a strong support from the MCP. I'm wondering if it is what you call the grasp (this is the first question). The second question is that since I'm dystonist it is somehow difficult to press freely without extending deliberately my fingers, and the consequence is that it is almost always the finger tap which makes contact with the keyboard. I notice that Horowitz also presses the keys in this way (not always but I see it quite often). Do you think it is a good thing? Tks in advance for your reply! Wang

I think you are on the right track. I have achieved a complete cure of several dystonias recently by taking your line of reasoning even further. It's hard to explain on the forum just HOW I did that, but take a look at my MTNA Chicago lecture on YouTube: "Alan Fraser Biotensegrity" to get some more clues. AFF

I think you are on the right track. I have achieved a complete cure of several dystonias recently by taking your line of reasoning even further. It's hard to explain on the forum just HOW I did that, but take a look at my MTNA Chicago lecture on YouTube: "Alan Fraser Biotensegrity" to get some more clues. AFF Hi Alan, tks for you reply! I just watched the video and it inspired me a lot. Actually it reminds me of some books that I have read in body mapping and the curling that happened instead of curving is due to a mismapping of the hand strcture illustrated nicely in this video: I like also your exercise of the thumb. Is it true that when we curl the first joint of the thumb we will feel tension in neck (I've always had tension in the right side of the neck and I've never thought that it was related to my thumb!!)? I had some difficulty in listening comprehension but I did some exercise myself and I hope I understand correctly. Another thing that I want to share with you is that unlike other people who didn't know the cause of their dystonia I know exactly why I got it. I've made exactly the same mistake as showed in the video and yours and at the time I tried to augment the strength of my finger by pushing very hard the bad mapping line of the palm which led to complete collapsing of the MCP. The dystonia occured to me after only three hours of pushing and have been with me since then for three years. Here are two little questions: After I saw the mapping mistake I tried to remap the hand structure by reading a lot of books. After making some progress I noticed that my fingers became too light and fragile like a tiny thread and I hear many horrible sounds in my hands. So I started to imagine my fingers as some solid bones that moved themselves instead of something pulled by some kind of threads. Do you think it's right? Do you think we should imagine that the mouvement is initiated on the palm side? Tks again for you reply and I look forward a lot to seeing your new videos related to this subject!

As I don't really use that language, "mapping the hand," I can't really answer your question. However for a few more clues, please visit this page and scroll down to the 7th video you see, titled, "Reiko Miyazaki finger rolling skeletal therapy variation." This shows a typical therapeutic approach for a dystonia. Reiko had tendonitis, not dystonia, but the approach is similar. Good luck! AFF