Why should I take a dry needling course?
I know you’ve been thinking about it! All the cool kids are doing it…..But you’re not the type to do something just because it’s cool. I get it. You need a good reason, evidence and assurance that it’ll be worth your time, money and physical effort involved. Ok – let me take a shot at convincing you.
I know that taking any continuing education course is an investment. Dry needling courses are some of the most popular courses for healthcare professionals to take because it provides a valuable and contemporary skill set that complements their existing knowledge and enhances their ability to manage numerous conditions.
Comprehensive training equips practitioners with the expertise needed to perform dry needling safely and effectively, providing a versatile tool in the realm of physical therapy, rehabilitation, and pain management. And Dry Needling Academy’s (DNA’s) goal on our courses is for you to leave not only confident in your technical skill wielding a needle, but also having the clinical insight to apply this Monday morning to any appropriate patient that walks in your door. In this post, we will delve into the reasons why healthcare professionals, such as yourself, should consider adding a dry needling course to their busy schedule, examining the benefits, applications, and potential impact on patient care.
Diversification of Treatment Modalities:
Comprehensive Patient Care:
Dry needling is a unique tool in that it can be used for a large variety of conditions. It is most commonly used in the orthopedic and sports realm, but its use is growing in popularity with neurological conditions, chronic pain conditions and more! Dry needling adds a layer of versatility to a practitioner’s tool box enabling them to offer a more comprehensive approach to patient care.
Integrated Therapeutic Strategies:
Integrating dry needling with other established therapeutic strategies, such as manual therapy, exercise prescription, and patient education, allows practitioners to create synergistic treatment plans. Dry needling, as part of a holistic approach to treatment, is an amazing reset to the neuromuscular system that allows all of your other interventions to have a greater impact enhancing patient outcomes.
Effective Management of Musculoskeletal Conditions:
Targeting Trigger Points and Beyond:
Ever had that patient with a knot in their upper trap that just won’t go away? Using dry needling to eliminate that symptomatic trigger point (hyper-irritable spots within muscles associated with pain and dysfunction) is one of the original ways we used dry needling. We now know that resolution of that trigger point has a lot to do with a greater CNS/PNS reset in addition to what happens locally in the tissue. And dry needling is one of the more effective modalities in addressing trigger points— promoting muscle relaxation, pain relief, and improved mobility and function locally in that muscle.
But we also know that we need to address underlying reasons for that trigger point. Do they have neck instability? Did they never fully rehab an old shoulder injury? Our job as their healthcare professional is discover and treat both symptoms AND underlying causes of symptoms. We need to address that cervical instability or shoulder dysfunction with motor retraining, strengthening, manual therapy and all the other tools in your toolbox. Dry needling is a tool you can use to assist you with a neuromuscular reset to compliment motor retraining and specificity in strengthening to address the underlying CAUSE of the trigger point. You can use it to facilitate improvements in dysfunction that led to the development of the trigger point to begin with so that you can eliminate that trigger point for good.
Pain Reduction:
Rarely do patients and clients come to us without some level of pain or discomfort. Health care consumers and practitioners are concerned about opioid use for pain relief - and rightly so. Evidence for pain relief with dry needling is growing rapidly. Having this tool available to you as a healthcare practitioner, gives you a new way to provide non-pharmacological pain relief. Just say no to drugs.
Enhanced Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine:
Accelerated Recovery in Sports Injuries:
If working with athletes is your focus, dry needling is a key tool in accelerating healing from sports related soft tissue injuries. From muscle strains to ligament sprains, dry needling facilitates blood flow, reduces inflammatory markers in the region and improves motor control quicker to allow for a return to normal movement patterns.
Improved Motor Control:
Evidence has shown improvements in functional movement after dry needling. Theories behind these improvements include an increase in muscle fiber recruitment (and preferentially type II fibers when using electrical stim), or that it is a type of biofeedback that has impact on the CNS and PNS improving neuromuscular responsiveness. Here’s an article showing improved vertical jump after dry needling. Or this one that shows increased isometric quadriceps strength after dry needling. Athletes are currently using dry needling to help them lock in movements that improve their performance.
Targeting Soft Tissue:
Want to talk specificity? One of the ways to be most effective with your needling is with accuracy in your needle placement. The ability to be specific with your soft tissue targets helps refine your diagnosis and plan of care much quicker. This accuracy comes from knowing your anatomy. Our courses are an excellent review of anatomy. We’ll make sure you can find your targets with a thorough review and plenty of practice time. In addition, the use of electrical stimulation with dry needling not only provides additional blood flow and nervous system responses, it also helps refine your specificity. Think you have a needle in Extensor Hallucis Longus? Put the electrical stimulation on that needle. If you’re seeing ankle dorsiflexion and inversion – you are NOT in EHL. (Bonus points if you can tell me which muscle you ARE in and which way you need to redirect your needle to get EHL!)
Not to mention, dry needling is an amazing tool to affect change in musculature that you can’t possibly reach with your thumbs. Save your thumbs. Use a needle.
Versatility in Neurological and Chronic Pain Conditions:
Neurological Rehabilitation:
Is neuro your gig? Dry needling is being applied more and more in in-patient and out-patient neurological rehabilitation settings. The evidence is starting to emerge that dry needling can be helpful with motor recovery and symptom management in conditions such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson's disease. Dry needling can be used for short term changes in spasticity and tremors for functional strengthening. Imagine being able to get substantial improvements in elbow extension to allow your patient who suffered a stroke to perform tricep strengthening through that new ROM. Even if it were only a temporary change in spasticity, over time the improvement in triceps strength through that ROM could have lasting effects. Or, what if you can reduce lower extremity spasticity long enough to allow a patient to stand in a standing frame for physiologic benefits? Investing in a dry needling course opens avenues for practitioners to explore these applications.
Chronic Pain Management:
Chronic pain conditions, often challenging to address comprehensively, may benefit from the inclusion of dry needling in treatment plans. Dry needling can not only reduce pain, allowing patients who have persistent pain to move more (which is critical in their recovery), but it can “sharpen the map” of the brain’s representation of that body part, thus addressing the CNS component to chronic pain. Check out this recent article (featuring one of DNA’s own - Keri Maywhort, as a co-author) demonstrating this change. In this article by Cesar Fernandez-de-Las-Penas he explores the role dry needling plays in holistic treatment of persistent pain conditions.
Patient-Centered Care:
Meeting Patient Preferences:
Health care consumers are better advocates and do more research on potential treatment approaches and individual healthcare providers than ever before. We’ve all seen how patient preferences and expectations play a significant role in their treatment outcomes. Being able to offer a non-invasive, drug-free intervention that can provide meaningful changes for patients make a healthcare practitioner competitive in a discerning marketplace.
Professional Development and Marketability:
Staying Current in Practice:
With ongoing advancements in treatment modalities, healthcare continue to be an exciting and dynamic environment. In some regions of the country, dry needling has become an expected component of treatment (remember all those cool kids doing it??). Investing in a dry needling course keeps you current in your practice, and demonstrates that it’s important to you to continually expand your skill set to meet evolving patient needs.
Marketability in the Healthcare Landscape:
Want to be more marketable as a healthcare professional? Possessing the skill of dry needling enhances your marketability in the healthcare landscape. You care about providing optimal patient outcomes. Taking an updated, evidence packed course like our dry needling courses, demonstrates a commitment to continuous learning, specialization, and the adoption of evidence-based interventions.
Evidence-Based Practice:
Informed Decision-Making:
When you take a dry needling course, you gain an understanding of the mechanisms of how dry needling works, indications, contraindications, and potential risks associated with dry needling. Our courses are chock full of evidence based information regarding dry needling. This allows you to foster safe and effective clinical practice and arms you with critical clinical decision making skills to make the best choices for your patients and clients.
Interprofessional Collaboration:
Collaborative Patient Care:
Continuing education courses can be an excellent bridge for interprofessional collaboration. And dry needling courses are no exception to that. Practitioners seeking training in dry needling include physical therapists, occupational therapist, chiropractors, athletic trainers, doctors, physician’s assistants, nurse practitioners and more. Taking a dry needling course provides you with an opportunity to collaborate with other professions and help you provide patient care that transcends traditional silos.
Multidisciplinary Team Integration:
In settings where multidisciplinary teams address complex cases, the addition of dry needling to the collective skill set enhances the team's ability to formulate comprehensive treatment plans, benefiting from diverse perspectives and expertise.
What’s the take home? Taking a dry needling course offers healthcare professionals a myriad of benefits that extend beyond the acquisition of a single technique. The ability to use this tool as part of a holistic approach to treatment of numerous musculoskeletal, neurological, and chronic pain conditions marks you as a well-rounded provider in a competitive market. The incorporation of dry needling aligns with patient-centered care, professional development, and evidence-based practice.
Whether you are working in physical therapy, athletic training, rehabilitation, chirpopractic or other healthcare domains, the integration of dry needling into practice holds great potential to elevate the quality of care you can provide. Dry needling’s ability assist your patients and clients in reaching their personal goals quicker is an invaluable aspect to having this tool in your kit. Taking a dry needling course demonstrates a commitment to professional growth, improved patient outcomes, and staying at the forefront of evolving healthcare practices.
From learning the underlying physiological changes that occur with dry needling, to becoming proficient with the technical skill, and learning how to apply this tool to get optimal clinical outcomes, Dry Needling Academy has got you covered. Give it a try. We promise you won’t regret it!
