nursing

I found the information quite thorough. It is written in a user-friendly way, easy to understand. I bought this book because it was listed as a reference for the chiropractic practice part 2 exam. This book helped me with the locations of the trigger points. Sometimes the chiro boards like to ask questions on trigger points. However, Leonardi's book: National Board of Chiropractic Part II Study Guide: Key Review Questions and Answers and National Board of Chiropractic Part III Study Guide: Key Review Questions and Answers with Explanations are excellent for board exam preparation. These three books are needed for the part II and Part III of the boards.

As a Clinical Massage Therapist at a hospital, I use these books almost daily. In fact, I just ordered my second set. . . The first is so threadbare it's barely usable. ANYTIME I have a patient with a pain that I can't immediately identify I grab my Travell's. This set is an absolute BIBLE for anyone in the health care industry. Travell and Simons have esentially written "The Instruction Manual" for elliminating myofascial pain by going to it's source!

Janet Travell, MD and David Simons, MD were absolute pioneers when it came to myofascial pain and it's treatment. What makes these books even more amazing is that they were written a full quarter of a century before doctors even acknowledged that myofascial pain actually exsisted. . . What makes them interesting is that, in this, the most current edition, they have re-evaluated about 65% of the sites that before would only be considered for cortizone or saline injection and now recommend these areas be attended to by a Massage Therapist. They even go into strong detail as to stroke, direction and stretching. There are still plenty of sites that they recommend for injection, but only in a last resort situation.

The chapters are laid out in an incredibly easy to understand manner, though that's not even the beauty of the book's design. If you know the name of the muscle in question, you simply look inside the front cover; the muscle are all listed with their coresponding page numbers next to them. Don't know the name or not sure which muscle it is in the group? No problem. You again open the front cover and there, in 5th grade simplicity, are charts for all the areas covered in the book. Flip to the area in question and look through the diagrams. When you find (in the super well drawn diagrams) the pain you are trying to treat, you are given, not only several treatment plans, but etiology and most likely direct verve aggravation associated with the pain.

My only problem with the set is that the book are not as well bound as maybe they could be for the price. You'll notice, however, that it didn't have enough of an impact on me to give it any less that a perfect score.

I STRONGLY recommend this book for ANY health care practitioner that deals with pain control and alleviation.

Janet Travell MD and David Simons MD spent a lifetime studying the patterns and treatment of muscular and soft tissue pain in patients. It is a specialty in itself, and provides an amazingly detailed review of anatomy. These books are the bible on the subject written by the "mother" and "father" of the specialty. There will hardly be a day in the professional life of a busy primary care practitioner, rheumatologist, orthopedist, neurologist, physiatrist or physical therapist when these books will not be used. The more one knows of this field, the more revelations one gets into those difficult chronic pain patients. The etiology and muscular complexity of the huge field of "tension headache" syndromes now become clear. With these books you will have the tools to diagnose and treat effectively (usually dramatically) the entire spectrum of myofascial pain from head to toe, muscle by muscle. Why do so few physicians know of this vital area of medicine?