Rehabilitation, (a.k.a corrective exercise or active care or function conditioning), is an essential component to a patients treatment plan.  Our bodies adapt to the demands placed upon them.  An individual’s occupation, age and lifestyle place certain demands on the body and ultimately the body responds accordingly.  This is seen through postural changes, gait abnormalities and muscle imbalances.  Often these adaptations can place abnormal biomechanical stress on the structures of the body.  This can lead to injury, decreased performance and painful syndromes.  The objective of rehabilitation is to not only restore functional capacity but to improve performance levels.  This in turn, is beneficial in the prevention of subsequent relapses in their condition.  Rehabilitation is conducted in a graded fashion.  The provider works within the patients limits, gradually incorporating exercises that mimic the activities of the patient’s work related duties or sport.  It allows to patient to “take ownership” of their ailment, since most of the exercises can be performed safely at home.  The benefits of such are improved posture, improve core stability, improved performance and reduced fear about relapse of injury.

A chiropractic adjustment is a gentle “low-force” technique to introduce movement into joints that may be “hypo-mobile” or “restricted”. A joint or spinal segment that is not moving correctly may contribute to excessive strain on the surrounding ligaments, muscles and joints as they compensate for the lack of movement. The adjustment is designed to improve range of motion and flexibility, while decreasing muscle spasm and pain. This is achieved through stimulation of spinal reflexes and modulation of the pain perception areas of the central nervous system. Some effective adjunctive to chiropractic care are core stabilization exercises, medical acupuncture and active release techniques®.

Flexion Distraction is a form of chiropractic therapy that requires the assistance of a “flexion” table.  It may also be referred to as “spinal distraction” or “decompressing traction”.  The patient lays face down on the table and the bottom half of the table moves up and down and from side to side isolating the individual segments and ultimately reduces pressure within the disc.  This is a non-invasive form of treatment for acute and chronic spinal pain syndromes.  It has become a common non-surgical approach in the management of disc problems such as herniated discs, disc degeneration, sciatica and pinched nerves.  Patients typically describe feeling “looser” post treatment and the objective of flexion distraction is to:

1. Increase intervetebral disc height
2. Decrease pressure within the disc
3. Allow the nucleus pulposus (the center of the disc) to assume its central position and relieves pressure of the spinal nerves
4. Transiently increase the saggital diameter of the vertebral canal
5. Restore physiologic motion to the vertebral joints
6. Improve nutrient transport to the disc
7. Decompresses the space (foreamen) where the spinal nerve roots travel

For more information regarding the goals of flexion distraction please refer to http://www.coxtechnique.com/aboutcoxtechnic/goals.html

Medical acupuncture is a biomedical adaptation of traditional Chinese acupuncture methods.  This is done through inserting needles and applying low voltage electric stimulation at precise acupuncture points.  The paradigm of medical acupuncture is based on neurophysiology and neuroanatomy.  In simplest terms, acupuncture stimulates the nervous system to release chemicals in the muscles, spinal cord and brain.  These chemicals will assist in the “neuromodulation” of the pain experience.  The benefits of acupuncture include (but not limited to):  pain relief, reduce muscle spasm and improves muscle function, breaks up fibrous adhesions (scar tissue) and diminishes swelling.  Most patients feel minimal or no pain at all with needle insertion, once the needles are in place there is typically no pain felt.  Medical acupuncture is performed with sterilized disposable needles which are discarded after the treatment.

To learn more about medical acupuncture follow this link:

http://www.medicalacupuncture.org/acu_info/articles/helmsarticle.html