What is SFMA? (Selective Functional Movement Assessment)
Do you have a nagging injury that continues to come back time after time? One reason may be that you are never getting to the root of your problem. The Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA), can help with this.
SFMA is a full body movement screen used to identify dysfunctional movement patterns that ultimately lead to musculoskeletal pain.
The hallmark of SFMA is regional interdependence [link to previous post]. This is the concept that seemingly unrelated impairments could be contributing to the known disability. The focus of SFMA is quality of movement, not quantity of repetitions.
How SFMA works
This specialized movement assessment is a 10-item, movement-based diagnostic system. It allows a physical therapist or other skilled clinician to first identify dysfunctional, asymmetrical and painful movement patterns, then create a personalized treatment plan with manual therapy and therapeutic exercise interventions. Items are scored with one of four results:
· Dysfunctional and painful
· Dysfunctional and non-painful
· Functional and non-painful
· Functional and painful
After the test
Following your Selective Functional Movement Assessment, your clinician will have determined where these impairments are and if this is due to tightness, instability or a combination of both. Ultimately, the root cause of the problem is revealed and addressed in a strategic and methodical manner through your personalized treatment plan.
A focus on dysfunctional and non-painful movement patterns
These are addressed first in your treatment plan. These types of impairments are ones that you don’t know you have, and which could be leading to pain elsewhere in the body – or which make you more susceptible to injury.
The full body approach
The SFMA is an effective test, because it uses a full body approach. Although a body is the sum of many parts, it ultimately functions as a whole. Without considering it this way, many important pieces to the puzzle of rehabilitation get lost. With a Selective Functional Movement Assessment, you can rest assured that the entire body has been thoroughly reviewed from a musculoskeletal perspective for dysfunctional movement patterns. This screening tool has helped many individuals restore lost function and prevent future pain issues.
