The long-standing intensive work on fundamental research and clinical practice which finally led to the Matrix-Rhythm-Therapy, will be adequatly exposed in the following interview between Mr. Hans Ortmann (Board of Management of “Verband Physikalische Therapie Bayern”/ Bavaria) and Dr. Ulrich G. Randoll.

The Matrix-Rhythm-Therapy

An Article about Holistic Medicine from the Perspective of Physical Therapy

Hans Ortmann, Managager of the Sector Munich Upper Bavaria,
Deputy Manager of the Association of Physical Therapy in Bavaria (Verband PhysikalischeTherapie Bayern)

 

In the occasion of the annual conference of the International Society of Holistic Dentistry (GZM) in Munich in 2007 I heard about the Matrix and Matrix-Rhythm-Therapy in connection with the treatment of cranio-mandibular dysfunction (CMD). This cystological concept, which was presented there by Dr. Ulrich Randoll (Munich), reminded me on that way of thinking which has become familiar to me through the system of quality management for some years. In general Dr. Randoll treats biological systems as complex, well-ordered systems being divided into the three intreacting areas information, process and structure (I-P-S Management). To perceive human beings from the perspective of management systems, which let appear an occuring symptom as a breakdown of process within a systematic approach is new. It was quite simple for everyone to understand how limitations due to physical immobility are linked to interferences on the cystological level and how easily concepts for physical therapy can be developed. This will lead to a plausible but totally new scientific basis for our special field. After the presentation I could interview Dr. Randoll in order to delve deeper into the topic.

 

H. Ortmann: Mr. Randoll, you are physician, worked at the department of Oral Surgery (Prof. Dr. Dr. E. Steinhäuser) and Trauma Surgery (Prof. Dr. F. F. Hennig) at Erlangen University and supervised a perennial project: “Clinical Fundamental Research”. For many years you have been consistantly realising the results of your research by your modular Matrix-Therapy concepts at the Matrix-Centers. The Matrix-Rhythm-Therapy is one of the most important result of your project. Why did you come up with this idea and how could this therapy be explained?

 

 

Dr. U. Randoll: The idea to concern myself with physical therapies came up by the clinical necessity. We had partially bad therapy results which made me reconsider these traditional methods. We were not able to help seriously-sick persons although using all academic possibilities to full capacities. On the basis of new epistemological models we tried to develop new therapy models leading finally to high resolution vital-video-microscopy.

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In contrast to electron microscopy we were able to see living cells. At the end of the 1980s the terms “cybernetics”, “chaos theory” and “non-linear thermodynamics” were quite unknown to me. These ideas pushed our experiments with the video-microscope in the frame of our research work at that time. We stimulated tumour and ordinary cells – chemically (pharmacological-homeopathic) or physically (mechanical-electromagnetic) merely by the change of the culture medium to find out how they readapted to the stimulation. The movements of mitochondria and the rhythmic process within the cell plasma of several cells, which we could stimulate extrinsically were revealling. For the first time we could show cell processes by fresh human cell-biopsy and could film it with video-cameras. I entered new territory. Concentrating on the spectra of physical therapy methods we looked and asked for these methods that have a non-specific effect (chaotic) and a specific effect (regulative). Taking today’s view into account this had already been a matter of stiumlus/ response on the cellular-regulative level with methods of the Physical Medecine. A possible therapeutic principle e.g. to enhance optimal metabolism and effective tissue by a definite rhythm seemed to be plausible from the perspective of former “research of biophotones”. But it took a long time that we could benefit from this research by practical application in the field of “Physical Therapy”. The finding that biochemical and biophysical cellular processes are bound to rhythms in body as well as to external rhythms put us on track. With the help of piezo-sensors (accelerometer) on the sceletal muscles we could prove in the frame of a dissertation that decelerated or intensity-reduced rhythms correlate directly with pain, hardening and other medical conditions. Healthy muscles synchronises between 8 and 12 Hz. Obviously a different elasticity and plasticity of muscles is linked with a different “logistics” on the cellular level. The sceletal muscles came in the focus of our research. With the message “without rhythm there’s no life” or “the adequate rhythm means health” we could cover a wide range: from a holistic approach, which derived from the latest results from Physics to the antique Hippocratic medicine, which considers health as “harmony of life processes” and made the former “functional view of illness” come into being. Based on this biological meaning of body rhythm in effective tissue, the Matrix-Rhythm-Therapy couples coherently mechanical-magnetic vibrations into the body. Biochemical and physical processes which are bound to rhythm and that have died down are reactivated or regenerated and readapted. This proceeding can be compared to an orchestra with an conductor (impulse generator) permanently organising musicians (cells) and encouraging them to cooperate.

 

H. Ortmann: What is exactly the therapy about?

 

Dr. U. Randoll: First of all I would like to present the view of scientific approach of synchronism. These researchers consider biological systems as harmonic or choherently vibrating systems. Coherent rhythms e.g. the rhythm of the heart or brain or muscle rhythms are effective on all hierarchical levels – from microscopically small processes to macroscopic processes. In the body the impulse generating rhythms are bound to the directed movements of the liquids, which surround each somatic call like the culture medium in a cell culture. To give a better idea of it: all somatic cells are washed around like fish in water and lead as single osciallators to a visible rhythm. Is there no change of water the fish will noticeably suffer because the the supply and waste management will become insufficient. The logistics will be disarranged and everything will be polluted. The consequence is that permanently wrong rhythms lead unavoidably to a degredation of the quality of the cell-incircled environment – the so-called extracellular matrix By mechanism of compensation and decompensation the system comes gradually to a break down. Similar to material fatigue the cell performance declines and there is a negative rebuilding of tissue due to micro-process variations (occurrence of a symptom). These processes become concretely apparent as pain, hardenings, muscular contractions, conglutination of fascia/ tendons, tension, lack of elasticity and coordination beginning on the cellular micro-level. The Matrix-Rhythm-Therapy is a method that complements physiotherapy and which enables us to take systematically corrective action on the cellular level to treat changes of functional processes. By causing micro-extension by this specific rhythm the method has an effect on the sceletal muscles and by the “entrainement effect” (coupled motion effect) the cellular processes are sensitively stimulated, the cells are washed around and readapted to the complete system.

 

H. Ortmann: For what cases do you recommend the therapy?

 

Dr. U. Randoll: The therapy has delivered an optimal performance in these case where symptoms have a cause that goes back to microcirculation. That means that each medical field can potentially benefit from the therapy due to to the cellularly-regulative approach. Having been developed at Erlangen University 10 years ago the Matrix-Rhythm-Therapy has been become firmly established primarily in the field of rehabilitation, in competitive sports and veterinary medicine. For three years it has also been accepted in the company’s departments of occupational health – especially in the automobile industry. The application of the Matrix-Rhythm-Therapy can serve as a means of prevention (to prevent pathological dysfunctionality) as well as a means of rehabilitation (to prevent or reduce secondary damage after overexertition, injuries, accidents and surgery). In sports medicine the considerable reduction in time for recovery between the training sessions and after overextension, traumata, hardenings, tendinitis, myoarthopathies and other disorders are highly appreciated because the therapy leads to an increase in training cycle and a fast return to high performance after injuries. But it is also effective when treating different kinds of pain (incl. migraine), applying it after surgery or for chronic wounds, for all kinds of chronically-degenerative illnesses like rheumatism, arthrosis, osteoporosis, etc, for accident-caused or posturally degenerative changes in muscles or spastic contractions of disabled people. In the field of dentistry it has achieved acceptance as an optional means for the systematic pre-treatment before registering the position of the lower jaw. The postoperative application can reduce the tendency of swell.

 

H. Ortmann: How do you classify this therapy?

 

Dr. Randoll: From a historical view the Matrix-Rhythm-Therapy can be seen as a vibration therapy specifically concentrating on the sceletal muscles and can be described as a further development of the classic vibration massage. It is traditionally applied as an effective method in the field of rehabilitation and sports but due to the fact that this method is quite exhausting for the therapist the penetration depth has a clear limit. In the course of time the Matrix-Rhythm-Therapy has turned out be an effective, rhythmic, deep penetrating Micro-Extension-Technique, which systematically couples into physiological closed loops. It can be considered as a supplement to different methods of physiotherapy, osteopathy and manual therapy.

 

 

Dr. U. Randoll: Exactly. In my opinion the development which led finally to the Matrix-Rhythm-Therapy is the logic scientific course of action in the frame of the minituarisation in the last century. The surgery has become a micro-surgery and the physiotherapy will be settled on a cytologically regulative level where interaction between information, processes and structures takes place. It is a contribution to regenerative medicine, a new scientific branch. It is a field of biomedicine which focuses on explantation processes and mechanisms of self-healing. The physical-chemical milieu (extracellular matrix) which controls cellular processes via the so-called epigenetic has become more and more important. These are quite interesting interfaces between cytology on the micro-level and therapeutic consequences on the macro-level,which have led to exciting research topics.

 

H. Ortmann: This scientific approach, that you described, is highly-interesting, but in the daily routine the physiotherapists come back to business due to the restrictions of statutory health insurance. The timing device for a definite service will be reduced bit by bit. Which relevance will have the physical medicine in the future?

 

Dr. U. Randoll: From time to time I am just wondering if the up-to-date physical medicine is on its way to be eliminated. The setting of time standards has already lead to a non-effective patient care. It has been forgotten that many methods of physical medicine focus on the human being that is treated and not on a device which makes up the efficiency of the therapy. It’s the same in surgery. The person that uses the scalpel is paid and not the scalpel itself. The therapist influences the biological system by regulative methods and works with human beings and not with unanimate objects. This is the reason why a sustainability of the therapy can only be achieved by a private conversation in order to convey the most important facts of the body’s functionalty to the patient. In our society health has become more and more a matter of awareness. But neither complex technical instruments for diagnostics neither regulations could lead to economically viable solutions. This is a pity because at the beginning of the 20^th century the physical medicine experienced a cultural flowering in combination with the cure traditions. At the moment I see physical medicine in combination with the resources of the health resorts as a slumbering object of cultural value of the forgotten European traditional medcine – like cultivated by the Benedictines. Scientific physiotherapy can only develop by taking aspects of cytology into consideration. The understanding can be supported by concepts from modern quality management because it is quite easy to recognise that biology itself is a perfect system of quality management. The result of the process adaption to new stimuli determines if symptoms appear. And today more than ever naturally-conform impulses are highly important and have to be established in the public health sector and our daily life. In future – I think you probably learned about that in the course of this event of the GZM – the prospects for the physical medicine in combination with natural resources will be rosy. But people are needed who have got the courage to strike the new path of 21^st century Scientific Medicine and follow something that scientifically has already been worked out. On the basis of process-oriented biomedicine fluctated space-time-patterns play an important role. Self-organisation, synchronism, salutogenesis, potentiality and self-healing effect are further topics which will become apparent and which will also enclosure influences from the field of spirituality.

 

H. Ortmann: Mr. Randoll, thanks a lot that you had the time for this informal interview.

 

 

Further information by

Hans Ortmann
Krankenhausberg 3

84453 Mühldorf

Tel.: 0049 - 86 31 / 72 70 | Fax: 0049 - 86 31 / 16 48 64 |E-Mail: HansOrtmann@t-online.de