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In the age of information technology, back pain has become a frequent and severe problem. Reportedly, about 35% of people face back pain. Among the people looking for its treatment to ensure relief from such pain, chiropractic is the most sought treatment.
Chiropractic is an alternative to the treatment of various disorders of the muscular and skeletal systems. It mostly involves the treatment of diseases related to the spine. Chiropractic is considered a vital treatment technique as it includes the remedy to the disorders that affect general health via the nervous system.
Chiropractor, a practitioner of chiropractic treatment, uses techniques to align the musculoskeletal structure properly. It involves structuring of the spine in particular. Chiropractic care enables healing of body without any medication and surgery. Hands-on manipulation comes in use for restoring mobility of joints with restricted movement due to numerous causes such as repetitive stress, traumatic event, or sitting with improper back support.
Relevance of Chiropractic
The primary use of chiropractic is a pain reliever for muscles, joints, and bones. It also involves relieving connective tissues such as cartilage, ligaments, and tendons. Chiropractic care is often used along with other conventional medical techniques to treat severe disorders.
Manual therapy is primarily involved in the chiropractic treatment. Such therapies include spinal manipulation therapy, manipulation of joints and soft tissues.
To be able to treat a chronic back pain, a therapy involving injections such as sugar-water or anesthetic is applied. Such disorders usually require more than three months to recover.
Things you need to know about Chiropractic Care
Chiropractic care and spinal manipulation are considered to be one of the safest and effective treatments.
- It treats an acute back pain in less than six weeks though it is relatively common than chronic back pain. Such pains usually occur due to an act of moving or lifting things that are heavy and large resulting in sudden injury.
- Chiropractic care also relieves one from headaches and neck pain which has been proven by research.
- Patients taking blood-thinning medications should avoid spinal manipulation.
- It should not be adopted by patients having osteoporosis, spinal cord compression, or arthritis.
- Patients having a history of cancer should first obtain consent from the hygienist to take chiropractic care.
- The patient should provide all the medical history and information such as lifestyle to the chiropractor before the treatment.
- Spinal manipulation is cost-effective for chronic back pain and to some extent for the subacute back pain as well.
- Back pain and neck pain treatments are the specialties of chiropractic.
Treatments involved in Chiropractic Care
A chiropractic adjustment is a regular treatment that falls under chiropractic care. It can also be known by the term spinal adjustment or spinal manipulation. It is passive series of manual to take the joint past the natural movement. A dynamic thrust, a sudden force to cause audible release and increase in the range of motion of the joint, is a vital factor in chiropractic adjustment. Hands are used to massage, adjust, and apply traction the spine and other related tissues.
Chiropractic care involves a physical examination by lab tests and diagnostic imaging. It determines the appropriateness of the chiropractic treatment for the particular disorder.
Denver Chiropractor, Dr. Bryan Foss says, “The treatment plan usually involves multiple adjustments performed manually. The chiropractor manipulates certain joints using sudden controlled force. Nutrition and exercise are also incorporated into the treatment plan. Thus, it restores the functionality and helps to prevent any injury shortly.”
There are various treatments involved in chiropractic care such as:
- Diversified technique
It is full-spine adjustment involving many extreme modifications.
- Activator technique
A spring-loaded tool is used to adjust the spine.
- Thompson Technique
It mainly relies on a drop table and other detailed protocols.
- Gonstead
It emphasizes on the evaluation of spine adjustment avoiding rotational vectors.
- Cox/flexion-distraction
It is a procedure that combines the chiropractic along with the osteopathic principles. It uses special adjustable table having movable parts.
- Koren Specific Technique (KST)
It uses either hands or an electronic device known as an ArthroStim to assess spinal manipulations.
Effectiveness of Chiropractic Care
Following are the conditions that prove the effectiveness of the chiropractic care:
- Lower back pain
The chiropractic care is an effective procedure for physical therapy. It treats the lower back pain effectively.
- Radiculopathy
A significant amount of improvement is experienced in recovery from sciatica. It also does support treatment of an acute radiculopathy and a severe disc herniation.
- Neck pain
Chiropractic care offers relief from acute or subacute mechanical neck pain within a short span of time.
- Headache
Chiropractic care is as effective as other techniques and procedures to prevent a migraine headache. It also treats a tension headache efficiently.
- Extremity conditions
In addition to the exercise program, the chiropractic care aids in knee osteoarthritis. It also helps in treating the upper limbs and shoulder pain. It helps solve and manage severe leg extremity conditions.
References:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic
- http://bothachiropractic.com/chiropractic-care/
- https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/guide/chiropractic-pain-relief#1