CHIROPRACTIC EXCELLENCE

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…

Your Philosophy May Be Vitalistic, But Is Your Art Mechanistic?

What is Vitalism?

1) Theory that life originates due to a force distinct from chemical and other physical forces. The classical 18th century vitalist doctrines propose that all life phenomena are animated by immaterial life spirits. These life spirits are unexplainable and undescribable from a physical point of view, but determine the various life phenomena.

2) Where vitalism explicitly invokes a vital principle, that element is often referred to as the “vital spark,” “energy” or “élan vital,” which some equate with the “soul.” Vitalism has a long history in medical philosophies: most traditional healing practices posited that disease was the result of some imbalance in the vital energies which distinguish living from non-living matter.

3) Was once a term of Aristotle pertaining to a cosmic force known as “ether” that was supposedly giving life to dead things.

Chiropractic has a vitalistic philosophy in the sense that we claim we all have an innate intelligence which gives our human bodies their healing potential - the ability to intelligently regenerate. To take this one step further, it was proposed by our pioneers that this information is transmitted through the body via the “Mental Impulse”. This is a separate and distinct concept to that of action potentials and electrical currents…

D.D. Palmer: “Chiropractors do not treat diseases, they adjust the wrong which creates disease; they have discovered the simple fact that the human body is a sensitive piece of machinery, run throughout all its parts by mental impulse.” (1910)

Stephenson: “We might conceive of this mental impulse as being composed of certain kinds of physical energies, in proper proportions, which will balance other such forces in the Tissue Cell; as electricity, valency, magnetism, cohesion, etc., etc.. Perhaps some of these energies are not known to us in physics. What right have we to assume that we have found them all? The writer presents this as a hypothesis or theory in order to get a working basis… It is no discredit to Chiropractic that it must also use theories concerning the transmission of mental forces.” (1927)

So, here’s the challenge - how does this affect the way we adjust each and very patient? Is our application, or the “Art” of doing what we do, a reflection and outpouring of this vitalistic philosophy? Let’s contrast the above definitions of vitalism with those of mechanism…

Mechanism:

1) Machine part: A machine or part of a machine that performs a specific task.

2) Something like machine: Something that resembles a machine in having a structure of interrelated parts that function together the fragile mechanism of the planet’s ecology.

3) Method or means: A method or means of doing something.

4) Philosophy philosophical theory: The philosophical theory that all natural phenomena, including human behavior, can be explained by physical causes and processes.

To be perfectly honest - this sounds more like the practice of chiropractic as it is practised in most chiropractors’ rooms.

Now here’s the challenge: If we have a vitalistic philosophy, but this has no application in what we do - then what’s the point of having this philosophy? After all - isn’t the purpose of a philosophy to provide an internal compass, via which we make decisions about what we think and believe, and hence how we behave?

This leaves us with two options…

1) Jettison our traditional philosophy and replace it with one that sounds more like the mechanistic methods - so that our Art follows on from our philosophy - that is - change our philosophy to match our behaviour.

2) Upgrade our behaviours so that they align with our core vitalistic philosophy.

Torque Release Technique provides chiropractors with a much more vitalistic model of applying their philosophy on each and every patient. And here’s what most practitioners find when they make this upgrade - they see more vitalistic changes in their practice members: Over and above the garden variety mechanistic changes - That is - they see MORE LIFE returning into the faces, minds and bodies of their patients.

Click Here To Find Out More About TRT Training…