Muscle Defense Symptom

A symptom of muscle protection or demuscululation is a syndrome that occurs with pathological impression (loss of mobility of intervertebral joints).

It is characterized by lower back pain, often bilateral, aggravated by straightening the spine and bending the body backward, limited extension and pathological inclination of the pelvis. From the anamnesis it becomes clear that previously there was a forced tilt of the head to the shoulder with increased pain and the inability to tilt it in the opposite direction. During the process of standing, pain often occurs above the level of the painful area, often spreading to the leg and located on both sides, as a result of which there is an assumption about the discogenic nature of the syndrome, which is aggravated with increasing duration of the forced position. Palpation reveals pain and hypoesthesia along the outer edge, often refractory dystopia of the bladder or intestines. The most reliable signs are an increase in the tone of the depressor muscles of the back and the detection of a focus of tension in the form of a “glomerulus” in the anterolateral parts of the thigh; in the patient’s position on the stomach, you observe a “dislocation of the hip joints” - scoliosis of the spine. On examination: due to instability and pain, as well as limited movement of the knee flexors, the patient is forced to stand bent over - this is the so-called “negative concavity” in the torso, taken for

Symptom of muscle protection

A symptom of muscle protection is a protective contraction of muscles in response to conditioned reflex stimulation that is not related to the expected stimulation of the same muscle (like “pathological inhibition”). A muscle symptom is a response (usually a convulsive or reflex contraction of a muscle) that occurs to ordinary stimuli that the muscle previously responded well to, but now cannot, since it is contracted pathologically. In other words, muscle protection (symptom défense musculaire, SDM) -