CHIROPRACTIC EXCELLENCE

There have been some fascinating analogous breakthroughs occurring in seemingly unrelated technology fields which help to elucidate chiropractic principles that have been with us for decades, have been neglected and ignored due to a perceived lack of reinforcing and validating evidence, and because as a profession we have suffered from low self-esteem and have displayed an increasing tendency to adopt other health care models when we believe that our models are somehow unacceptable compared to an invisible “best practice”.

One concept that is an absolute must-study for chiropractors is that of Tensegrity:

The word tensegrity (a contraction of tension and structural integrity) was coined by Buckminster Fuller (an American architect, author, designer, inventor, and futurist, born 1895, died 1983) in 1948 to describe a class of structures first invented by the artist Kenneth Snelson (a contemporary sculptor and photographer, born 1927). Snelson’s sculptures, which are often delicate in appearance, depend on the tension between rigid pipes and flexible cables. This is achieved through “a win-win combination of push and pull”.

Fuller’s most famous outcome of this model is the geodesic dome.

Where tensegrity provides a better framework for chiropractic than traditional biomechanics is by explaining why all living forms are structurally stable yet flexibly adaptive, yielding but with a great resistance to damage.

In other words human bodies at both macroscopic and microscopic levels don’t follow normal engineering, mechanical and architectural principles – they follow tensegrity principles.

According to Snelson, weaving is the mother of tensegrity: “Weaving and tensegrity share the same grounding principle of alternating helical directions; of left to right; of bypasses clockwise and counterclockwise.” Similarly living tissues whether talking muscle or connective tissue, or the microscopic structures that form cells, are woven together and not just cemented together at their ends and corners. It is this very principle that makes living tissue flexible while enormously resistant to compression and strain.

In a tensegrity sculpture, individual tension lines (strings, wires or rope) are attached to the ends of struts so that each assembly comprises a closed system of tension and compression parts. Each tension line connects individually to the ends of two separate struts and the lines are made taut so that they bind the struts, connecting them as a continuous tension network. The forces introduced by the tightening are permanently stored in the structure, a state known as prestressing. The solid components resist compression while the elastic components resist tension. Now visualise any joint in the human body and you can start to see that the bony struts don’t actually completely meet at their articulations but are prestressed by the surrounding ligamentous and connective tissues creating a naturally formed tensegrity sculpture.

Because all tension lines (string, wire, cable, ligament, tendon, muscle) have some degree of elastic stretch, tensegrity structures themselves are elastic and springy depending on the tightness of the prestressing and the characteristics of the tension material and the structure’s geometrical form. If you apply a compressive or distractive load the structure will yield and adapt – distort. But as soon as the external forces are removed the structure will spring back to its original state.

Now if we shrink our viewpoint to the microscopic cellular level then we similarly find that “living cells stabilize their internal cytoskeleton, and control their shape and mechanics, using a tensegrity architectural system.” (See Tensegrity in a Cell: Click Here… )

Ingber and colleagues have even approached questions relating to how mechanical distortion of the cell and cytoskeleton influence intracellular biochemistry and pattern formation, by combining the use of techniques from various fields, including molecular cell biology, mechanical engineering, physics, chemistry, and computer science. They have shown that contractile microfilaments in the cell’s molecular skeleton, or cytoskeleton, act like stretched rubber bands as they compress hollow cytoskeletal fibers called microtubules and pull on molecular pegs that anchor the cell to an underlying scaffold – the extracellular matrix. Moreover, they have found that physical distortion of the cell and cytoskeleton can alter cellular biochemistry and even gene expression.

Don’t skip over the last statement because if you read slowly you literally see a parallel for the chiropractic model for how mechanical dysfunction can lead to physiological malfunction and how correction of this might direct towards expression of maximum human potential!

In other words, trying to re-establish a physical view of biology, Ingber has shown that cells, far from being formless blobs, use tension to stabilize their structure. And he has demonstrated, through two decades of experiments, that tensegrity not only gives cells their shape, but helps regulate their biochemistry.

Ingber says that cells have “tone,” just like muscles, because of the constant pull of the cytoskeletal filaments. Much like a stretched violin string produces different sounds when force is applied at different points along its length, the cell processes chemical signals differently depending on how much it is distorted.

One of the most ignored models of vertebral subluxation is the tonal model but if you take the time to investigate this alternative biomechanical and neurological idea you see that the spine resembles a tensegrity model (Artists have recreated spinal columns and pelvic girdles with their sculptures). And that the biomechanics of the spine cannot be isolated to intervertebral movement and its influence on the intervertebral foramen at an isolated intersegmental level; but the spine and all of its surrounding soft tissues, including the meningeal and nervous tissues form a linked closed system where change in tension and distortion influence the entire functional unit and change the degree of tension in the spinal cord, thereby modulating tonal frequency in the central nervous system.

What this literally means is that a subluxation at one level influences the entire system: And from this point of view a subluxation, especially with meningeal attachments to the spinal cord has a global impact on the physiology of the nervous system.

To paraphrase Ingber the spinal cord processes chemical signals differently depending on how much it is distorted.

Torque Release Technique offers a practical application of this model and trains participants in how to detect the site of initiation of mechanical and hence tonal distortion in the spinal column – this is known as the primary subluxation. Contemplate the primary subluxation as the source of distorting force on the spinal tensegrity model which leads to maladjustment of the tonal frequencies of the neurospinal system - abnormal sensory perception and motor output being the outcome. But because distortion at one point creates distortion of the entire system, an advanced methodolgy is required to differentially diagnose the “epicentre” of the problem: This methodology is known as the protocol of Torque Release Technique.

No other chiropractic technique has offered a live, non-linear and non-invasive method to determine exactly where and how the human body wants to be adjusted. Hope to see you at our next training program – check out upcoming dates at http://www.torquerelease.com.au/TRT-Seminar.htm

Sources and Essential Reading:

The Architecture of Life. Donald Ingber. Scientific American. January 1998. Click Here…

The Mechanical Cell. Nancy Fliesler. Dream, The Magazine of Possibilities. Spring 2004. Click Here…

Tensegrity I. Cell structure and hierarchical systems biology. Donald Ingber. Journal of Cell Science. 2003. Click Here…

Tensegrity II. How structural networks influence cellular information processing networks. Donald Ingber. Journal of Cell Science. 2003.  Click Here…

The Geometry of Anatomy. The Bones of Tensegrity. Tom Flemons. Intension Designs. Click Here…

Weaving. Mother of Tensegrity. Kenneth Snelson. Click Here…

I’ve seen a Tasmanian Tiger! Well if I’m completely honest it was a hologram of a Tassie Tiger – but boy did it look pretty damn real: I kept trying to reach out to touch it – probably not something you would have done had you met one in the wild? Now I could make the claim that if there had been more Chiropractors and less poachers in Tasmania – the Tassie Tiger may still be alive today: But that’s not what this article is about – we’ll get back to chiropractic later…

Holograms are quantum physics photographs – a different paradigm in recording and then projecting an image of a three dimensional object. Have you ever bought one while strolling around a Sunday morning community market? You look at it from any angle and you still see the 3D image. And here is another fact about holograms – if you were to break it in half you would still see the whole image on each of the broken fragments: This is because each fragment of the whole records enough information about the whole to be able to reproduce an image of it. Another way of considering this is that the whole is in the part – and the part can reproduce the whole.

Let’s take a closer look: A traditional photograph is stored dots with spatial relationship to each other – it is a linear analogue recording of the object being photographed. When you photograph the object the information is converted to dots which copy the colour and shade of each part of the object. The higher the resolution, the more the dots in a concentrated area, and hence the more detail the image will record. Now think of how your computer printer works – it sprays coloured dots onto a piece of paper based on this image recording to give you a reproduction of the object in 2-D. Now take pair of scissors and cut the paper in half – you’ll now be left with a top half and a bottom half of the image. Keep cutting into halves and you’ll end up with a jigsaw puzzle – small parts of  a photo that make no sense until they are all pieced back together again.

A holographic recording is very different – instead of recording dots, it records relationships. The reason you see an amazingly accurate copy of the object when looking at a holographic image is because the relationships of all the components of the object are three dimensional so the image looks 3-D. And if you break the holographic image into half – what’s left will still record those relationships, so that you will see what looks like the whole object. Each time you break the image into a smaller part you lose clarity because the amount of information that is stored about the relationships of the object diminishes, but you’ll still see the whole object in the image.

Now what has this got to do with Chiropractic? The “whole in every part” concept suggested by the holographic model should not be a difficult concept for the average Chiropractor. But next we need to look at what holographic modelling has to do with the brain – then we can make the jump to what we do in our offices all day every day.

As neuroscientists were studying how the brain functions they were repeatedly confronted by major problems: Where does a memory live was one of those big questions. In undergraduate studies we are taught about anatomical regions of the brain and we try to memorise the primary function of each one of these components. Problem is that it is actually not that simple even though it is a great way of writing really difficult exam papers.

As brain imaging advanced and researchers started to be able to observe which parts of the brain switch on when particular mental and physical functions are being performed it had to be concluded that memories are stored based on the relationships between different brain cells and centres that are activated when perceiving the experience – that is, memories are dispersed throughout the brain. Prior to this it was thought that the brain stored information in an analogue form – they just couldn’t find the part of the brain where the dots were stored.

In a series of landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley found that no matter what portion of a rat’s brain he removed he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to surgery. The only problem was that no one was able to come up with a mechanism that might explain this curious “whole in every part” nature of memory.

Then in the 1960s Karl Pribram encountered the concept of holography and realized he had found the explanation brain scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that criss-cross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of laser light interference criss-cross the entire area of a piece of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram.

And based on this breakthrough, it was recognised that the anatomical centres that had been suspected to be storage facilities, were actually processors that help to convert the perceptions of images into stored relational information and then back into being 3-D images that can be retrieved.

Pribram’s theory also explained how the brain can memorize something in the order of 10 billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or roughly the same amount of information contained in five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica): Similarly, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage – simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike a piece of photographic film, it’s possible to record many different images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that 1cm3 of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information.

This shift in understanding has even been taken to new heights with attempts to explain creative, intuitive, spiritual and even paranormal insight based on the idea that we as an individual are not as isolated as we might think and may be part of a bigger holographic picture – the universe: I’ll leave that for you to ponder with friends and a glass of good red in your hand, sitting on the side of a hill watching an awesome sunrise, or while meditating or worshipping however you do.

So let’s get closer to a Chiropractor in his or her practice, trying to help his or her practice members to enjoy a better quality of life. There in is the keyword – QUALITY. The quality of a holographic image is dependent on the quality of the information recorded – you have to have some pretty high-tech lasers and electronics to make a holographic image.

(A hologram is a three- dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser. To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams co-mingle) is captured on film. When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears.)

In the human context the quality of your perceptions and hence all your choices that follow is dependent on your senses and the quality of the neurological connections that record and then access the stored relationships to result in pro-life choices much like a hologram.

According to Pribram, if you divide neural activity, you can divide it into propagative nerve impulses on the one hand, and then these slow potentials – hyperpolarizations, steep polarizations – that don’t go anywhere. And they form this holographic-like pattern, and it’s those that he feels are what we experience as images. DD Palmer described these polarizations as the “Mental Impulse” and this pattern as “TONE”.

The term which is most apt to connect the concept of holographic brain modelling and the chiropractic concept of subluxation is dysafferentation. Increasing numbers of research papers and intellectual commentaries are discussing how a subluxation interferes with the body’s proprioceptive awareness: And if you mess with the input, you mess with the output – “junk in – junk out”.

Another way of looking at this is that a Subluxation is like a missing piece of the hologram – the whole body picture remains, BUT, the quality of the image will be diminished – reduced quality of life!

Let’s consider this in the light of what we look at every day – posture. When you look at someone’s posture you are seeing so much more than head, shoulder and pelvis levels, forward head posture, forward pelvic tilt, and abnormal spinal curves – you are seeing a holographic projection of that person’s image of themselves. Let me say that in another way – when you observe posture you are reading that person’s language of how they see themselves – their body language – and what you see is a holographic projection from their nervous system.

I like to stretch Chiropractors perception of what they see and do and one concept that I often discuss is that posture is not body part alignment – it is the representation of a person’s ability to perceive and position their body parts in space. This depends on excellent kinaesthetic awareness and accurate somatic coordination – these are neurological phenomena, not mechanical functions.

The way I describe this to my practice members is I show them a digital photos of themselves standing, along with objective measurements of their body alignment and ask them what they see. People are not silly, and they nearly always notice their head and neck alignment and the belly that results from their pelvic distortion. I then ask them why they think they are carrying their head around like that! While some will come up with lame excuses like, “I wasn’t ready to have my picture taken, take it again and I’m sure I’ll look better” (they never do – I’ve done it), or “I wasn’t feeling too good that day, I’m feeling better today so I’m sure it will be fine now” (it never is), most on the other hand shrug their shoulders and ask me to explain: I then ask them that if they could feel that their head and pelvis were that far out of alignment do they think that they could attempt to self-correct and they all agree that they could. And that is the answer – the reason their head and pelvis and whatever else is so far away from gravitational efficiency is because they don’t know! Their holographic image of themselves is so distorted the image that they present to the world around them is distorted.

Similarly when your practice member is lying prone on your adjusting bench and you attempt to centre their torso and legs on the bench, how often do they say to you; “now I feel crooked”. But you know and can see that they are now centred – their original position was the crooked one. Again the relationship between their perception of their body alignment and the expression of their body alignment is disconnected – dysafferentation due to Subluxation has led them to express a distorted self-image – a dysfunctional holographic image.

When teaching Torque Release Technique we discuss the fourteen indicators of Subluxation, one of these being postural assessment. We break postural assessment into three types: standing, sitting and prone – each being a separate and distinct neurological projection from within. And we translate this language to assist the Chiropractor to interpret what Subluxation patterns may be underlying. A better understanding of posture acts as a great objective outcome tool, helps to make the Chiropractor’s clinical decision more intuitive and precise, and impresses practice members enormously when they see how differently they look with improved posture.

AND, if you understand and communicate the deeper neurological dimensions of posture and all the other indicators that you observe, you can shift your practice members away from pain and suffering, towards a more vitalistic and wellness focussed outlook and behaviours.

But from an even bigger picture – if you improve the holographic photo that someone is taking of themselves every second of their life, you can enormously alter and improve the holographic image that they present to the world and based on the holographic model this will impact the self image and behaviour of every cell in the human body – and perhaps even the universe around them – now that sounds like a truly BIG IDEA!

To find out more about Torque Release Technique Training and to take advantage of great online savings go to this link: www.torquerelease.com.au/Torque-Release-Discount.htm

© 2010, Dr Nick Hodgson, 2005 Victorian Chiropractor of the Year

Chiropractic has been around since the late 19th century and its founding principles really haven’t changed much since the early part of the 20th century – in fact one might argue that chiropractic philosophy has devolved from some of the dizzy heights reached by some of the early chiropractic authors. The science of Physics was going through a quantum shift during this same era, evolving from Newtonian Physics to what is now commonly called Quantum Physics. In chiropractic we often talk about paradigm shifts and this is often in the context of everyone else needing to have one in order to catch up to our principles of health and illness.

But maybe we too need a paradigm shift? Let’s take a look at the shift that occurred in Physics as a metaphor or simile to the paradigm shift that the chiropractic profession needs to make if it is to climb up to its perceived position of superiority on the wellness ladder.

Newtonian Physics was man’s logical attempts to make the universe fit into his objective and mechanistic model of how the world works: Based on the observation that big complex things are made up of lots of little simple things that combine numerically to produce basically a big machine with small moving parts. And as this domineering science invented lots of really cool machines based on this principle, and as they discovered smaller and smaller components that appeared to follow the same principles, the belief system was self-justified.

Within this model matter was made up of particles which behaved in predictable ways, while energy was seen as a separate and distinct component of nature, and this consisted of wave forms: Substances whether organic or inorganic are composed of atoms which are themselves made from smaller particles of electrons, protons and neutrons; while energy forms like light and sound are produced by different spectrums for vibratory frequencies.

But there came a point along the Newtonian quest to find the smallest particle and to better understand more about how these particles behave where this separation started to dissolve. As Physicists studied the behaviour of electrons in different environments they found that sometimes electrons behaved like particles and sometimes they behaved like energy!

This lead to enormous friction within the scientific community and pushed supposedly intelligent men to the point of irrational argument, name calling and sledging. Till finally one man, a school dropout came up with a formula that made sense of it all: E = MC2. That man was Einstein and while the understanding and the application of this seemingly simple formula has progressed with succeeding physicists, they themselves cite this “shift” as the pivotal breakthrough.

Most people can quote the E = MC2 formula as belonging to that cute and cheeky looking silver haired king of the geeks. Many can even translate it as energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. But let’s take a closer look at what this really means? Let’s forget the constant in the formula for a moment – take out the C2 and you are left with E = M! That’s the breakthrough people – energy and matter are actually different manifestations of the same thing. In other words matter is just stored energy, and energy is matter in its higher forms of existence.

We can see this transition in its simpler forms when we do our most basic high school chemistry experiments of heating ice, which becomes water, which becomes steam – they are all still water, but at different states of their energetic existence. But E = MC2 is a much bigger picture than this.

Many modern physicists are still more comfortable referring to matter and energy as almost distinct phenomena, and take solace in the fact that it takes the speed of light squared to make the change between being in a matter state versus being in an energetic state. The speed of light is basically the biggest number scientists can think of, so they argue the formula is saying that it takes something huge to shift energy into becoming matter.

Einstein actually originally proposed the formula as M = E/C2 – that matter was really just another form of energy. And this is what quantum physics is really all about – that matter is really just what we observe when energy is being pooled or stored – but it is really still just energy!

So this is where quantum physics and chiropractic could meet – if chiropractic is ready to make the same paradigm shift. I believe that some of the earlier chiropractic philosophers made this shift at about the same time as the physicists did. But unlike the Physics profession that got to the point of accepting the new idea, the chiropractic profession successfully suppressed and circumvented the shift.

RW Stephenson authored the 33 principles in 1927, and this could perhaps be the analogous shift in understanding the human state as E = MC2. Stephenson talks of the three components of our formula as force, matter and intelligence: This is the chiropractic equivalent of E = MC2! Force equals energy, matter equals mass, and intelligence is the hugest constant that we can possibly think of. Maybe our formula could read as F = MI2.

So why am I saying that the chiropractic profession missed this shift? Firstly the self-proclaimed intelligentsia and political leadership have quite successfully removed the constant from the formula. It has been successfully argued that intelligence is not required to practice chiropractic! And what I really mean by this is that concepts such as innate intelligence and the mental impulse have been denigrated as being pseudo-religious nonsense. When in fact intelligence is the missing piece that makes matter possible!

Secondly chiropractic has been successfully reduced to matter therapy – bones, muscles, ligaments, alignment and manipulation. It is becoming rare to see any reference to the nervous system when reading articles written by chiropractic publishers – but the nervous system connection is the connection between our matter and our force – our energy. And this capability is the ultimate representation of intelligence.

Hence, the current chiropractic formula looks more like “M = M”…

I was listening to one quantum physicist speak and he made the statement that the only place we really see Quantum Physics at work is in space. And then I had the revelation that he was SO WRONG. You see, most living biological organisms are classic examples of quantum converters. And the human being is the best example of a system that is able to use intelligence to continuously convert matter to energy, and energy to matter!

Now let’s get back to the paradigm shift that could happen, which would position chiropractic as the quantum shift in the healing arts: If matter is energy in a different state, then a subluxation is a person’s matter in a different energetic state. In other words a subluxation is not a physical state, it is an energetic state – it has less to do with what the particles of the body are up to, and more to do with what the wave forms of the body are up to.

Wave forms in the human body are represented by frequencies, so a Subluxation could be defined as an abnormal frequency pattern. There appears to be a movement in the chiropractic profession that dislikes the term subluxation because of its medical definition – “less than a dislocation”, which has obvious shortcomings as a clinical description, and at the same time they dislike what they see as almost esoteric connotations of the word to Chiropractors. The problem that results though – is that the offered alternative terms are almost universally less encompassing and in the context of this discussion grossly inadequate: spinal joint dysfunction, biomechanical lesion, mechanical back pain.

So let’s take a fresh look at the word subluxation:

• Sub = Below; under; beneath; less than completely or normally.
• Lux = A basic unit of illumination
• Ation = The act of; the condition of being; the result of

So why couldn’t we redefine the term Subluxation as something like “the condition of less than normal energy transmission”. If you wish to be more philosophically correct you might adapt this to “less than normal intelligence transmission” (Intelligence being the chiropractic equivalent to light).

If we can grow up enough to jettison the Newtonian model of subluxation description, and accept that Quantum Physics has filled the knowledge void, and that our definitions of chiropractic must evolve to a similar level, then we might even find that chiropractic makes more than a paradigm shift – it could make a quantum leap into the hearts, minds and bodies of the community.

How? If Chiropractic persists with its Newtonian descriptions of what it is about then it will continue to receive a Newtonian response from the public – “spine doctor”, “back cracker”, “bone cruncher”. But if the profession shifts to the quantum model, and effectively communicates this shift, then the connection between what we do and the nervous system is completed, the relationship between an adjustment and someone’s quality of life is restored, and the explanations of how chiropractic relates to issues like emotions, human potential and wellness become logical.

Torque Release Technique training provides you with the Science, Art and Philiosophy of how to make this Quantum Leap: Check it out at this link: http://www.torquerelease.com.au/TRT-Seminar.htm

I’ve organised a lot of seminars over quite a few years now (my first was in 1996) and as a result I have had the privilege of meeting every “type” of Chiropractor – and I have found that there is one constant trait that exists across all philosophies, techniques, practice management styles and scopes of practice – and that is a strong desire to provide the best possible therapeutic benefit from each and every “treatment”. Ignoring the very small segment of the profession that is more interested in the bottom line, than the spinal column – I know that each one of us hopes for and even expects that when we adjust someone, something good is going to happen for that person.

And that encounter can look quite different between practitioners. For example, it’s Monday morning and the first patient for the day is waiting, eagerly anticipating that they will be feeling “better” after their adjustment: Here are some possible generic scenarios:

1) The Chiropractor goes through their standard procedure of adjusting both sides of the neck, thrusts on a few thoracics, then rolls the patient onto both sides to loosen up the low Back.

2) The Chiropractor checks their notes from the last progress exam to see which segments had been determined to be needing adjustment for the next course of corrections, and then follows that recipe.

3) The Chiropractor palpates down the spine to find tight and tender points then proceeds to manipulate those symptomatic areas to improve the mechanical function of the spinal joints.

4) The Chiropractor uses some form of orthopaedic or neurological examination which can lead them to adjust anywhere between 6 and 12 subluxations on any given visit.

But there are some inherent weaknesses in the above approaches which must be reconciled if our goal is truly to deliver adjustments with that something extra:

1) If we don’t have a method to prioritise where someone really needs to be adjusted then should we call ourselves practitioners or technicians? One root of burnout is boredom: When every spine starts to look the same and when we start to diminish the value of each adjustment, then our sense of importance and passion also diminishes.

2) If we believe that adjustments initiate change, then shouldn’t the adjustments need to change through time? If a person’s spine and nervous system is healing, adapting and even evolving under our care, then why would today’s adjustment be the same as last month’s adjustment? And if someone’s life circumstances have altered since they started care, wouldn’t the pattern of Subluxation change to reflect this, and last week’s adjustment would now be inappropriate?

3) Chiropractors have long made the claim to be treating the cause. But if we treat based on symptoms, whether pain or tenderness, then don’t we make a mockery of this claim? If we claim to be removing interference from the nervous system, then shouldn’t we have some means of determining where that interference is, and how best to reduce that interference?

4) Most chiropractic techniques have talked about concepts such as primary and secondary subluxations, compensations, referral, distant effects from local interference, reflex projection. In other words not all Subluxations are created equal, and not all Subluxations need to be adjusted on every visit, because adjusting the “primary” subluxation will influence and reduce the connected secondary and compensatory malfunction. If we don’t have a method to differentiate between these types of Subluxations then won’t we be wasting some of our precious time?

Now consider a fifth option: On any given day, at the very moment that you are examining a spine, depending on the most recent physical, chemical and emotional stresses to your practice member’s nervous system, and superimposed over the long term accumulation of tension in their spinal system – there is one predominating subluxation, which if adjusted will produce bigger neurological changes than adjusting any other segment in the spine at that time. You would want to know how to differentially diagnose that segment wouldn’t you?

Watch Short Video Explaining The Concept of Primary Subluxations…

(If you can’t view this video try this link: http://www.screencast.com/t/YjliZjgwN )

This model has been developed during the research method design for a ground breaking, randomised, placebo controlled, prospective scientific project run in conjunction between Holder Research Institute, Turning Point Addiction Recovery facility, and the University of Miami School of Medicine’s famous Biostatistician Bob Duncan. This technique is today called Torque Release Technique and has been published in major journals such as Molecular Psychiatry, the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, and Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research, as well as being featured on the Discovery Health Channel.

Thankfully modern chiropractic can stand on the shoulders of its technique pioneering giants: Palmer, Thompson, DeJarnette, Van Rumpt, Logan, Toftness and more contemporary ground breakers like Epstein; and the development of TRT saw the best of the best being integrated to produce an amazingly streamlined and efficient means of determining which segment of the spine needs to be adjusted, with precise correctional vectors, and to confirm the success of a single adjustment or plot the objective improvement in indicators of subluxation through time.

Another gift from the research project was the Integrator – the first chiropractic instrument to be specifically designed and patented for the correction of Subluxations. What makes the Integrator stand alone is its ability to deliver a three-dimensional correction which includes all of the defining features of a Toggle Recoil adjustment – high speed, recoil, and torque. Plus it offers a feature that takes reproducibility and reliability to new levels – a preloading trigger that means that every adjustment delivers just the right amount of force and frequency.

Because of these breakthroughs TRT developed the reputation for being the twenty first century technique for Chiropractors to shift their practice model away from a mechanical and orthopaedic paradigm, towards a neurological and tonal application of our wonderful vitalistic philosophy.

And the consistent feedback from the hundreds of Chiropractors who have now completed TRT training is that it provides that missing piece in the technique puzzle – how to provide an adjustment which responds to the current physiological needs of the practice members’ nervous system, and how to generate big changes in state of wellbeing on each and every adjustment – physical, chemical and emotional.

2010 sees TRT in its 8th year of training Australian Chiropractors with Dr Nick Hodgson offering training programs in varied locations each year. Nick has organised numerous TRT training programs, has been personally mentored by the developer of TRT, Dr Jay Holder, and is one of Australia’s most experienced practitioners.

Click Here To See Upcoming Dates and Locations…

I was privileged to spend a day working at the Whittlesea Bushfire Crisis Centre as part of the Chiropractors’ Association of Australia (Vic) volunteer assistance effort, just 4 short days after the massive bushfires wiped out vegetation, homes, farms, businesses, wildlife, livestock and people. Whittlesea is at the base of the hills where Kinglake and Kinglake West were ravaged by bushfire and what some describe as fire storms and fire bombs. While we reflect on policies of whether people should stay and fight or evacuate, when the harsh reality of ravaging flames arrived, many didn’t have sufficient time to make either decision.

As we drove towards Whittlesea you could see the hills ahead as a dark grey backdrop, as opposed to the usual lovely Eucalypt-green-blue hue, with small smoke clouds still being visible in small sections of the forest. Having been a visitor on many occasions to this region while visiting close friends in Kinglake West, traffic was noticeably heavier than usual, and the township of Whittlesea resembled a country carnival. As you enter Whittlesea the cemetery looms on the left, and a large collection of dark suited people were paying respects at a memorial service – some people will be visiting that place regularly over the ensuing weeks.

Turning into the town centre you pass some opportunity shops which now have crowds of people outside and inside collecting what necessities they lack – noticeable were the piles of filled plastic bags, boxes and clothing seemingly spilling out the fronts and sides of these tin buildings – much has been given – maybe even to excess? We proceeded to the community centre where we were halted, questioned and then directed to the tent where Chiropractors were working. The whole area was a hive of activity with numerous services and food vans which refuse to take money for their produce, even when you offered it.

It seemed difficult to differentiate volunteers from victims; some had official aid clothing, while others were wearing texta-drawn bibs offering “free hugs”; everyone you walked past said hello and either asked if they could help you or thanked you for being there.

It was a cool and windy day, starkly contrasted to the soaring thermostat of a few days before, but we worked in an open tent regardless, and adjusted anyone who approached us, even some of the ones that mistook our “Telstra” tent for a place to recharge their mobile phone. I would have liked to adjust everyone that passed us that day, but I had the recurring feeling that many were embarrassed by the amount of care and aid that was available, and seemed reluctant to partake of what could have been freely theirs.

As a chiropractor we not only hear what ails our patients, we also feel what emotion is being stowed in their bodies as we palpate and adjust them, and I felt bodies which were in states of shock, defence, confusion and internalisation. The recurring response to the adjustment was “can I stay there”, as they arose with blurry, relaxed but tired eyes. I’ve worked in a few scenarios now, where the people I adjust are facing severe hardship and crisis and I must share that the Chiropractic adjustment is a wonderful gift to be able to impart – its ability to reduce tension and to somehow impart hope has a powerful effect on people in desperate need.

I couldn’t help think that perhaps reality has not yet completely set in to this community – how can someone grieve over so many things all at once, and at the same time contemplate where they are going to live over the next months, how are they going to earn a living, how do they help their kids understand death and lack, and how do they prepare their lifestyle to somehow avoid this same scenario?

And as we drove out of that pained town, on our way to spend some time with our close friends who had lost their home, business and two immediate family members, it was difficult to think of what could be next for all these displaced people: We could only pray that the wave of humanity will continue and that we will be caring for these people until they have homes and the beginnings of new life and regrowth in their hearts, as this same process of regeneration inevitably unfolds in the natural environs where they live.