DNM was founded by Diane Jacobs, a physiotherapist for over 40 years and a manual therapist for over 30. By the end of the nineties Diane studied with David Butler, a PT from Australia, learning about nerves and pain mechanisms. Given the idea that she was less likely affecting tissue targets and more likely treating peripheral nerves she then got started reading the evidence and investigating the anatomy and mechanism of the nervous system. While Butler's methods dealt with the deep nerve trunks - Diane found that there were scads of cutaneous nerves, everywhere, that no manual therapy teacher had ever mentioned before! These cutaneous nerves were a lot longer, had more perilous routes through more body wall layers, and were much easier to access and figure out how to handle. 

Dermoneuromodulation is born.
By 2005 Daine was calling this work - DermoNeuroModulation, which later was renamed to DermoNeuroModulating to refer to it as a verb. In 2006, with the help of some other colleagues, including Angela Busch, Diane started a single subject research project to study the method. In 2010 they presented the results to the profession at CPA Congress in St. John's Nfld. In 2007, Diane was granted access at the anatomy lab at UBC to dissect the not so well-examined and document cutaneous nerves. By 2007 Diane started teaching DNM and currently teaches DNM internationally.

 


Additional contributions
In 2005, Diane helped form a special interest group in Canada where by 2008 the Canadian Physiotherapy Association formally recognized the group as the Pain Science Division. She served as its communications liaison until 2014, and still volunteer on a committee. Diane also is a moderator on SomaSimple and Facebook -Neuroscience and Pain Science for Manual Physical Therapist and DermoNeuroModulating.

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