Effects of manually applied force control training in physiotherapy students and experienced manual therapists

Manual therapists use manually applied physical force as their medium to achieve expected therapeutic effects. Force control ability based on proprioception is highly demanded for efficient 'hands-on' work and in the education process of manual therapy.

The aim of the presented study is to investigate the effects of manually applied, device-assisted force control training in manual therapy students and experienced manual therapists.

A quasi-experimental design was applied with 2 groups of volunteers (students and experienced manual therapists), intervention in the form of 20-session manually applied, device-assisted force control training, and 3 measurements of dependent variables (baseline, post-training and 1-month follow-up).

Force reproduction tests with no visual control were performed using a force plate and electronic dynamometer. Force control training was implemented using regular kitchen scales. A minimum of 1000 force reproduction trials was carried out during the training. Absolute errors of force reproduction were calculated.

In the post-training and follow up-measurements students made significantly larger absolute errors than therapists. In follow-up they completely returned to their initial status, while the therapists retained much of the skills they had acquired.

Device-assisted force control training reduces the magnitude of the force reproduction error in students and therapists. Therapists seem to retain more of the training gains. Further research should consider effects of a mixed form of force control training (with human-partner and device-assisted ones) implemented for the longer periods of time. This could bring a new quality to the process of manual therapist education.