Chiropractic profession promotes holistic care with main focus on maintaining proper physical vertebral alignment in order to maintain a good health. It is a scientific fact that structural imbalances could lead to nervous system dysfunction and lead to a variety of symptoms such as pain, aches, discomforts and other conditions. The goal of care is to restore the body to its maximum potential without drugs or surgery. Doctors of Chiropractic check the physiological function of neuromusculoskeletal system by utilizing orthopedic and neurological exams. Besides specific chiropractic adjustment, therapies such as massage, moist heat, electric stimulation, ultrasound, and Erchonia PL 5000 Laser can be utilized in order to restore a balance to the system. Diet and exercise advise can be given to a patient by a Doctor of Chiropractic.
CHIROPRACTIC ADJUSTMENT:
Chiropractic use controlled forces, called adjustments, when there are restrictions around joints that the body is unable to overcome itself. Such barriers include scar tissue and pain, swelling (edema), and muscle spasm.
Chiropractic examination helps to discover joints with limited range of motion weather they are painful or not. Specific chiropractic adjustment applied to a subluxated (restricted) joint can restore range of motion when the body’s own musculature cannot.
Adjustments help to relieve pain, as well as, restore and maintain normal movement, biomechanics and function.
The controlled force of chiropractic adjustments safely generates the energy required to overcome such limitations or restrictions and bring the joint back to its normal and full range of motion.
CHIROPRACTIC PROMOTES HEALTH NATURALLY:
The goal of chiropractic care is to bring back and retain the health of the whole person and not just treat separate symptoms or diseases.
Chiropractic care is not focusing on illness, instead it personalizes the care and helps to achieve maximum potential for a patient’s well being and improves the quality of human life.
Chiropractic care is focused at restoring and maintaining normal structure, nervous system function, joint and muscle.
RESTORING FUNCTION AND CHIROPRACTIC CARE:
Function means the ability to perform everyday activities of daily living as well as work activities. It includes range of motion, coordination, strength and flexibility.
Improving function is the key to long term pain relief. When function is not restored completely, any pain relief is temporary and accelerates the risk factor of chronic pain return. Good functioning joints do not have any pain, perform better and are not likely to get injured or degenerate. Bottom line – Chiropractic helps to minimize the pain and maximize the function.
BENEFITS AND GOALS OF CARE:
The benefits of Chiropractic care include good function, tissue healing and pain relief.
Each patient will require different frequency and different amount of time to achieve each of these goal
When pain is gone it does not mean that soft tissue has healed completely nor that the function has been restored.
It takes much longer time for soft tissue restoration vs. pain relief. It takes much longer time to restore the function vs. for tissue to heal.
Chiropractors carefully monitor pain, tissue healing and function using specific outcome measures to know when a patient has achieved maximum benefit and it is time to end care or shift to a prevention/wellness program.
CHIROPRACTIC, MOTION AND NUTRITION OF DISCS AND JOINTS:
Maintaining good motion is critical to the survival of discs and joints. A vertebral joint that can not move is not able to nourish itself. A healthy exchange of nutrients and wastes only occurs by physically pumping fluids into and out of the disc via spinal motion because discs and cartilage have no blood supply – process called imbibition. Movement stirs fluid through joints, washing nutrients in and waste products out. Lack of motion may lead to poor nutrition and disc degeneration.
The discs in the spine live because of the movement. Doctor of Chiropractic locates joints that have restricted range of motion, whether they are painful or not, and specific adjustments and exercises help restore and maintain normal motion and nutrition.
This post was based on Dr. Malik Slosbergs’s research.
Question: Did this article help you to understand what is the goal of chiropractic care?