Lymphatic drainage

Lymphatic drainage is a specific type of massage used in order to manage a limphatic circulation reduction and/or a peripheral fluids stagnation. This clinical condition is known as limphedema and happens especially in upper and lower limbs.

The typical lymphatic drainage (also defined as ‘manual lymphatic drainage’) tecnique is based on a particular type of massage from the peripheral areas of the body to the more distal areas with the aim of facilitating lymphatic drainage.

Only certified physical therapists that undertook a specific training can perform lymphatic drainage in Switzerland. The tecnique, regardless the different approaches, includes a mix of light pressures, variuos hands and fingers movements depending by the areas of the body that undergo the treatment, circular pressures with open hands and touches with the target to pump away, tecniques to collect and reabsorb, all of them performed in order to help the physiological drainage of the stagnant fluids acting on the areas affected by retention in order to promote the fluids reabsorbtion by the lymphatic vessels.

In case your physician and physical therapist consider this appropriate in your case, a lymphatic drainage session might continue beyond the treatment itself a tour PT center; this is possible through various elastic wrappings that avoid peripheral fluid stagnation.