French Physical Therapy

Technique Effective in
Patients With Refractory
Chronic Back Pain
A physical therapy technique known as Souchard's
global postural re-education (GPR) restores most people to
complete activities of daily living and therefore produces
results that are superior to other conservative interventions
or surgery, according to a team of Argentine investigators
GPR consists of a series of maneuvers in which
the patient is in the supine, sitting, and standing positions.
The physical therapist's maneuvers involve stretching the
paraspinal muscles and those of the abdominal wall so that
the joints are relieved of the compression that is typically
the source of their pain. The technique is named after the
French physical therapist who developed it, Philippe
Souchard, and was originally intended as a treatment for
scoliosis. Treatment is typically at least four months in
duration, with two to four sessions or more the first week,
depending on the severity of the patient's condition, and
then once weekly thereafter.