History of Triggerpoint Therapies

Is it Triggerpoint therapy or Neuromuscular therapy?

French Physician de Baillou (1538-1616) describes what we know as the myofascial syndrome.

1816 – Balfour, a British doctor mentions nodular, pressure-sensitive areas of swelling and thickening in muscle tissue from pain radiates out to neighboring regions. Edinb Med J. 1904 Mar; 15(3): 223–235. PMCID: PMC5274967 The Causes, Pathology, and Treatment of Chronic Rheumatism Ralph Stockman, M.D.

1843 – Froriep, German surgeon describes “muscle callus” as a sensitive hardenting in the muscle and reports that alleviation could be attained thorugh manual therapy.  Froriep R. Ein Beitrag zur Pathologie und Therapie des Rheumatismus

1898 – Straus, a German surgeon mentions tender nodules and painful palpable taut bands in connection with the cause of pain.

1900 – Adler terms the phenomenon “muscle rheumatism”

1904 – Gowers coins the term fibrositis : Br Med J. 1904 Jan 16; 1(2246): 117–121.doi: 10.1136/bmj.1.2246.117PMCID: PMC2352601PMID: 20761312 A Lecture on Lumbago: Its Lessons and Analogues Delivered at the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic William R. Gowers

1911 – Telling talks of fibromyositis

1915 – Llewellyn and Jones say sensitive nodules with radiating pain as being typical of myofiborsitis.

1919 – Shade uses the term myogelosis postulating viscosity changes in the muscle. Schade H. Untersuchungen in der Erkältungstrage: III. Uber den Rheumatismus, insbesondere den Muskelrheumatismus (myogelose). Müench Med Wochenschr. 1921;68:95–99. [Google Scholar]

1925 – F Lange describes muscle hardening

1927 – Albee uses myofascititis

1930 – Claton and Livingston use neurofibrositis

1931 – M. Lange wrote first manual of painful points in the muscle that he describes as local twitch response

1938 – Kellegren published research paper “Observations on referred pain arising from muscle”

1940 – Steindler introduced the term triggerpoint in a series of articles

1942 – Janet Travell first to use clinical description of muscular TrPs with the characteristics of “focal tenderness to palpation”, “radiating pain” and “reduced range of motion:.

1952 – Travel published first 32 pain patterns

1953 -Bonica recognized myofascial Trps

1950’s – Raymond Nimmo (1929-1986) Receptor-tonus Technique is a system­atic approach which uses ischemic com­pression to remove myofascial trigger points. The doctor is instructed to search for and correct these points which bom­bard the nervous system and give rise to subluxations by the hypermyotonia they produce in the skeletal system.

1954 – Good and Gutstein use rheumatic myalgia

1983 – Travel published first volume of Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction followed by volume two in 1992

1983 – Simons introduced the concept of mTrPs and the spray and stretch technique. Dejung, a rheumatologist in Winterthur, Switzerland began treating TrPs with manual therapy of stretching the connective tissue (used and adapted Rolfing)

The above information from Manual Trigger Point Therapy: Recognizing, Understanding and Treating Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction  Roland Gautschi but he just copied it from this Myofascial Trigger Points Then and Now: A Historical and Scientific Perspective Jay P. Shah, MD National Library of Medicine

Nimmos students Paul St John and Judith Walker Delaney and others carried on with the work referring to it as neuromuscular therapy.