Joint Mobilisations

Maitland Mobilisation

calf physiotherapy

This is a manual therapy based on the work of Geoff Douglas Maitland who’s treatment techniques are used world wide by physiotherapists. They are the basis for many other techniques used by physiotherapists and are taught extensively in all colleges so when therapists graduate they have an excellent grounding in these effective techniques.

There are 5 different grades of joint mobilisations and they are believed to produce different effects and are used by physiotherapists in all stages of treatment from the acute to the very chronic.

What are Joint Mobilisations?

  • passive movements
  • used to increase mobility of joints
  • used to decrease pain
  • performed at a speed in which it is possible for patient to prevent the movement
  • may be “gentle-smooth” or “stretching-staccato”
  • Passive Accessory Movement: they are joint movements which are performed by the physiotherapist and which the patient cannot reproduce on their own.
  • For example in order for you to bend and straighten a joint in your finger, you must have accessory movements in that joint, so a physiotherapist can:
  • Distract the joint – Pull it longitudinally
  • Glide the joint – Slide it forwards and backwards and from side to side
  • Rotate the joint
  • Similarly in order for the joints in your back to move as they should, you must have accessory movements at the joint which you yourself can not do, but which a physiotherapist can produce.

*Manipulation – when mobilisations are carried out at a grade V (five) they are manipulations.