Shingo Kitada is MKDE, a member of the medical staff at Olympique Lyonnais training center. He is also a physiotherapist at theLimonest football team and supervises master's students for their theses. Since 2017, he has been a certified practitioner of Allyane therapyHe reflects on the contribution of the method to his daily practice.
How did you discover the Allyane method?
I discovered the method by chance while I was doing a research master's degree at the end of my studies. I was looking for a topic, and my supervisor invited me to a conference. Initially, I had questions about the method. We saw a young tennis player who, when he served, couldn't fully extend his elbow. After a session of about an hour, the practitioner managed to change and modify the player's technique, so I looked into it further.
Their method seemed serious, so I asked the team for the possibility of writing a thesis topic on their technique to try to understand how it worked.
What is the contribution of the Allyane method to your daily practice?
I think that with current rehabilitation practices, the first question doctors, physiotherapists, and other healthcare professionals will ask is about the degree of pain. This is one of the only parts of the patient assessment where the patient's experience is truly considered.
What I learned from the Allyane method is to try to put myself in the patient's shoes, to try to understand what he feels when he makes a movement.
I find that everything we learn in other courses, and also in basic physiotherapy training, is that we deal with what is peripheral and not enough with the side of "are you able to properly activate this muscle? Are you able to feel the difference between the left and the right? The difference between before and after injury?".
Focusing on motor control has been very beneficial to me.
Do you consider the Allyane method to be complementary to your practice?
Yes, given that we use mental imagery and comparison between the different sensations between the right side and the left side.
In any case, when I see a patient, I think both obviously in terms of what I have learned with what I have been taught at the peripheral level but also at the central level.
Would you recommend that other colleagues undergo training?
Absolutely. To be honest, I tested this technique for a year. When I first discovered this method, I was hesitant, being very analytical. I told my physiotherapist friends that I would first see how the method worked and that I would tell them about it once I had some feedback from patients to be sure of its effectiveness.
I am now fully convinced that with this method, we are heading in the right direction in the care of our patients.