What is Chiropractic
Chiropractic health care:
What is Chiropractic?
Chiropractic is a health care profession that focuses on disorders of the musculoskeletal system and the nervous system, and the effects of these disorders on general health. Chiropractic care is used most often to treat neuromusculoskeletal complaints, including but not limited to back pain, neck pain, pain in the joints of the arms or legs, and headaches.
Doctors of Chiropractic – often referred to as chiropractors or chiropractic physicians – practice a drug-free, hands-on approach to health care that includes patient examination, diagnosis and treatment. Chiropractors have broad diagnostic skills and are also trained to recommend therapeutic and rehabilitative exercises, as well as to provide nutritional, dietary and lifestyle counseling.
The nerves in the spine can become irritated or pinched and can cause pain and dysfunction in any part of the body as the following chart shows.
The most common therapeutic procedure performed by doctors of chiropractic is known as “spinal manipulation”, also called “chiropractic adjustment”. The purpose of manipulation is to restore joint mobility by manually applying a controlled force into joints that have become hypo mobile – or restricted in their movement – as a result of a tissue injury. Tissue injury can be caused by a single traumatic event, such as improper lifting of a heavy object, or through repetitive stresses, such as sitting in an awkward position with poor spinal posture for an extended period of time. In either case, injured tissues undergo physical and chemical changes that can cause inflammation, pain, and diminished function for the sufferer. Manipulation, or adjustment of the affected joint and tissues, restores mobility, thereby alleviating pain and muscle tightness, and allowing tissues to heal.
Each muscle, tissue and organ in your body has a nerve supply, just like it has a blood supply. If there is interference in the nervous system it can affect the function of the organs, just as if there is a decreased blood supply, the organs can not be fully functional and healthy. Dysfunction leads to illness.
Chiropractic is not a cure all, but a system of health care that helps the body to heal itself by helping to balance the autonomic nervous system. Not every condition can be helped on every patient. Not every patient is accepted for treatment, only those whose examination shows their condition is likely to respond to our treatment protocols.
Our office treats the following conditions on a daily basis.
Low back pain
Muscle pain and spasms
Strain, sprain injuries
TMJ jaw problems
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Headaches of all types
The chart below shows the correlation between spinal segmental dysfunction and nerve irritation that can be related to the following symptoms.
” The nervous system controls and coordinates all organs and structures of the human body.”
Grays Anatomy, 29th edition, page 4.
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