Manual Therapy And Arnold Chiari: ‘Will I Or Won’t I?'

The incidence of Arnold Chiari Malformation dictates that, as a headache practitioner, at some time you will be faced with how to manage headache in the presence of Arnold Chiari Malformation. In this presentation, one of two Dean will present at the 2nd Watson Headache^® Institute International Symposium Online, a comprehensive perspective will be provided, based on contemporary literature, clinical experience and the clinical reasoning associated with a manual upper cervical intervention.

Ongoing Symptoms Post Cervical Arterial Dissection With Fibro Muscular Dysplasia: Is Manual Therapy Contraindicated? A Case Study

This a vexed question and not the first time Dean has been faced with this dilemma. In this case study, Dean will discuss the clinical reasoning associated with manual cervical management of a young woman with persistent symptoms and who is disabled by anxiety resulting from the Fibromuscular dysplasia diagnosis.

Bio

Dean graduated with a Diploma in Technology of Physiotherapy from the South Australian Institute of Technology in 1976 and then completed a Graduate Diploma in Advanced Manipulative Therapy (Hons), University of South Australia, in 1983. This was followed by a research Master's program investigating cervicogenic headache and the craniocervical flexors in 1991 from the University of South Australia.

Having treated secondary and primary headache exclusively since 1991, Dean has over 30,000 hours of clinical experience with 10000 patients. He is the founder of the Watson Headache^® Approach, Director of the Watson Headache^® Clinic, and Watson Headache^® Institute.

Dean’s passion and clinical experience led to the completion of his PhD at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia in 2017. The seminal finding of Dean’s PhD, in which he investigated the role of cervical afferents in primary headache, corroborated the role of cervical afferents as a peripheral source of central sensitisation in primary headache conditions. He has published in Cephalalgia and Headache as well as presented as an invited speaker on numerous occasions at inter/national meetings.

Dean remains an active clinician, teacher, researcher and is an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of South Australia.