What is the difference between decompression and traction?
6 min read
Asked by: Emily Pulley
The good news is both terms can be used almost interchangeably. Traction is defined as the act of pulling or a state of being pulled. Decompression, on the other hand, is defined as the act of relieving pressure.
What is traction decompression?
Nonsurgical spinal decompression is a type of motorized traction that may help relieve back pain. Spinal decompression works by gently stretching the spine. That changes the force and position of the spine.
What is traction of the spine?
Traction is a therapeutic method to relieve pain by stretching and realigning the spine. Placing a stretch on the spine separates the vertebrae and helps to relieve direct nerve pressure and stress on the vertebral discs.
What is decompression used for?
Spinal decompression therapy aims to help patients who suffer from debilitating pain due to bulging, degenerating, or herniated discs. It can also be used for the pain management and treatment of many causes of sciatica, injured or diseased spinal nerve roots, and worn spinal joints.
What is traction therapy used for?
Traction is a form of decompression therapy that we are happy to offer at Physical Therapy Services. It relieves pressure on the spine and alleviates pain from joints, sprains, and spasms. It can also treat herniated discs, sciatica, degenerative disc disease, pinched nerves, and many other back conditions.
Is traction good for slip disc?
In conclusion, lumbar traction is both effective in improving symptoms and clinical findings in patients with lumbar disc herniation and also in decreasing the size of the herniated disc material as measured by CT.
Is traction good for your spine?
Lumbar (low back) traction helps to separate the spaces between your vertebrae, the bones that make up your spine. In theory, slightly separating these bones can help take the pressure off pinched nerves (such as the sciatic nerve) to decrease your pain and improve your mobility.
How do you decompress your spine?
Following are some methods through which you can decompress your spine in the comfort of your home.
- Bar Hang-Ups. …
- Cat-And-Cow Stretch. …
- Child’s Pose. …
- Prayer Stretch. …
- Standing Kitchen Sink Stretch. …
- Positional Decompression. …
- The Benefits of Spinal Decompression.
Why traction is given?
The purpose of traction is to guide the body part back into place and hold it steady. Traction may be used to: stabilize and realign bone fractures, such as a broken arm or leg. help reduce the pain of a fracture before surgery.
Can decompression therapy make you worse?
Around 40% of patients will have significant relief within 2–3 weeks. The remaining 20% will get significant relief between 4–6 weeks. Less than 20% will experience no relief or minimal relief. Very rarely will a patient get worse.
Can decompression help a herniated disc?
Spinal Decompression Helps Retract Herniated Discs
Many doctors try, only to find that discs have moved back to their incorrect positions during follow-up care. Spinal decompression gently helps bulging or herniated discs return to their correct locations for long-term relief.
What are the types of traction?
There are two common types of traction. These include skin traction and skeletal traction.
Does traction help a pinched nerve?
A 2014 study found that mechanical traction was effective in treating people with pinched nerves and neck pain. Mechanical traction was more effective than exercising alone or exercising in addition to using over-door traction.
Is traction good for sciatica?
Based on current evidence, traction as a single treatment is not effective for patients with low-back pain, with or without sciatica.
Can you do traction on yourself?
Put your leg forward and stand up straight like this or off because you can actually undo. Everything you just did there this is nothing more than a form of traction.
Can neck traction help bulging disc?
Cervical traction has been used widely to help relieve neck pain from muscle spasm or nerve compression in rehabilitation setting. Continuous or intermittent traction has been regarded as an effective treatment for herniated cervical discs because it facilitates widening of the disc spaces.
Can you push a herniated disc back into place?
In theory the disc should be able to be popped back into its natural state, but it is very difficult to just “pop” a herniated disc back into place like a displaced gear. In fact, trying to pop a disc back into place can make the issue worse if the person doing the “popping” doesn’t know what they are doing.
What is the best treatment for herniated discs in neck?
Treatment with rest, pain medication, spinal injections, and physical therapy is the first step to recovery. Most people improve in 6 weeks and return to normal activity. If symptoms continue, surgery may be recommended.
How can I decompress my cervical spine at home?
So very simply we're going to pull our shoulders. Back pull them down. And hold this is a very good lower neck traction stretch. The next part of this stretch is we're going to take our chin.
How often should you do neck decompression?
How Often to Do Spinal Decompression? Typically, you will undergo 2-5 spinal decompression sessions per week, for four to six weeks. That’s 12-20 appointments before you can experience long-lasting pain relief.
How often should you do cervical traction?
Duration of cervical traction can range from a few minutes to 20 to 30 min, once or twice weekly to several times per day. Anecdotal evidence suggests efficacy and safety, but there is no documentation of efficacy of cervical traction beyond short-term pain reduction.
How do you self traction your neck?
Away. I'm gonna go far to the side. Yeah. So good posture your head is going to be up and you're gonna pull in this direction. And he was straight up and I get some traction.
Can traction be harmful?
There are no long-term risks of spinal traction. Some side effects may occur during or after treatment. Many people experience muscle spasms after traction. Some have pain in the treated areas.
How do you Unpinch a nerve in your neck?
So to unpinch the nerve we need to reduce the pressure in the disc or simply decompress the disc. And we're going to do that through pulling or traction base stretches.
Does neck traction help pinched nerve?
Cervical traction is a treatment often used in physical therapy to help treat neck pain and cervical radiculopathy (pinched nerves). It involves gently stretching your neck and separating the disc and joint surfaces in your cervical spine (neck).
Is cervical neck traction safe?
Neck traction is a gentle, yet effective, treatment practice for common neck pain; medically it’s known as “cervical spondylosis.” Cervical spondylosis is a wear-and-tear injury, meaning it happens over time, most commonly as we age.
Can cervical nerve damage heal?
Can it be cured? Although there are several very good nonsurgical and surgical treatment options available to relieve the symptoms of cervical myelopathy and radiculopathy, there is no cure, per se, for the degenerative changes in the cervical spine that caused the symptoms.
