Student Presenter(s): Kaitlin Unser, Nicholas Lewis, Rejath Jose, Anvin Thomas, and Alec Toufexis
Faculty Mentor: Milan Toma
School/College: Osteopathic Medicine, Old Westbury

Osteopathic Manipulative Techniques (OMT) can treat many musculoskeletal complaints. Techniques such as Counterstrain (CS) work by relaxing the muscle. This study aims to quantify the effectiveness of CS by analyzing muscle tone (MT), stiffness (MS), and local pain evoked by tender points (TP) of the rhomboid muscle. The TP in the rhomboids was examined via pressure on insertion points. The TP with maximum pain was noted using a muscle marker. Tekscan Flexiforce Sensor is used to measure the pressure needed to elicit TP pain. Myoton Pro measured MT and MS. A CS technique was performed, followed by reassessments of TP pain, MT, and MS five times per person to avoid outliers. One researcher was chosen to evaluate changes in pain, MT, and MS. Paired T-test was performed on the three parameters pre- and post-treatment. The results reveal a significant difference between pre and post-treatment pressure needed for pain (p: 0.01). No significant difference was found for MT (p:0.10) and MS (p:0.54). Nonetheless, median scores were lower post-treatment for both MT (Pre:17.10 Hz; Post:16.70 Hz) and MS (Pre:321 N/m; Post:16.70 N/m). The study shows the efficacy of rhomboid CS in raising the pain threshold of TP. Although no significant differences were found in MT and MS, lower median scores suggest an effect exists. Future studies with larger samples could reveal this effect more clearly. This study's limitations will be addressed by increasing the sample size in future iterations.