Manual Adjustments & Mobilizations
Drop Piece Adjustments & Mobilizations
Instrument-Assisted (Activator) Adjustments
Muscle Release Therapy
Instrument-Assisted Soft Tissue Therapy
Prenatal Care for Pregnancy
Low Level Laser Therapy
Acupuncture / Electro-Acupuncture
See below for details.
What is Chiropractic Care?
Chiropractic is a regulated health profession that focuses on the nerves, muscles and skeleton.
Chiropractors practice a hands-on, or manual, approach providing diagnosis, treatment and preventive care for disorders related to the spine, nervous system, muscles and peripheral joints.
After taking a complete history and physical examination, a diagnosis is made and a chiropractor can develop a comprehensive treatment/management plan, recommend therapeutic exercise and provide nutritional and lifestyle counselling.
Depending on the condition, chiropractic care may be the primary method of treatment or may complement treatment by a medical physician, physiotherapist, registered massage therapist or naturopath by relieving the neuromuscular aspects associated with the condition.
Manual Adjustments & Mobilization
Adjustments helps to relieve pain and restore normal movement and function to the joints and their supporting muscles and ligaments. Highly skilled and precise movement is applied by hand with a quick thrusting action to a joint. When a joint is manipulated pressure is released, sometimes creating a popping or cracking noise.
With mobilizations, the same movement is applied to a joint, but in a slower fashion. This helps to restore motion into a restricted joint.
Instrument-Assisted Adjustments
Using a small hand-held instrument called the Activator, a gentle impulse is delivered to a joint. This technique is more gentle than both hands-on and drop-piece adjustment and also allows for more specificity, as it is small enough to target even the smallest joints in the body.
Drop-Piece Adjustments
A quick thrust is applied to a specific joint which activates a drop section of the chiropractic table to release. This dropping motion accelerates the force being put into the joint allowing for a gentler adjustment, with less force needed to achieve the same results as with a manual adjustment. It often allows for treatment without the use of torsion or twisting motions, which is often more comfortable for the patient.
Muscle Release Therapy
Our muscles are intricately connected to the joints in our body. Without restoring proper function to both the joints and muscles, injuries often persist. It is important to holistically treat an injury by addressing both joint restrictions and muscular problems. Muscle release techniques work by relaxing contracted muscles, improving blood flow and lymphatic circulation within the muscle, and stimulating the muscles’ stretch reflex to restore it’s proper function.
Low Level Laser Therapy
Low level laser therapy (LLLT) works by emitting a light energy that acts directly on the cells of an injured area to reduce pain, accelerate tissue regeneration and reduce inflammation. It is a fast and pain free treatment, in fact you don’t feel anything at all.
Acupuncture /
Electro - Acupuncture
Acupuncture works to increase blood flow to specific areas, stimulate healing, decrease inflammation and can help to relax tight musculature and improve muscle firing. When appropriate, we will sometimes use electro acupuncture. This is where we add pulsed current to the needles which can enhance the effects of acupuncture alone.
Acupuncture is used to treat fibromyalgia, chronic pain, tight muscles, headaches, migraines, low back pain, neck pain, sprains/strains, nerve pain, sciatic pain, symptoms due to arthritis and more.
Instrument-Assisted Soft Tissue
Therapy
A hand-held stainless steel tool is used to treat muscles, tendons and ligaments. It aids in the breakdown of adhesions or scar tissue found in these soft tissues, improving blood flow and lymphatic drainage aiding in swelling reduction and tissue healing.
Prenatal Care
Chiropractic Prenatal Care is suitable for any pregnant women, especially if she is suspected of having inadequate uterine function, pelvic biomechanical dysfunction, pregnancy related low back or pelvic pain, and/or baby mal-position.
Prenatal Chiropractic Care consists of an analysis of the pelvis, diversified and/or drop-piece chiropractic adjustment, and treatment of the surrounding musculature and ligaments. Treatment addresses the sacroiliac joints, pubic symphysis, sacrotuberous ligaments, round ligaments, piriformis and psoas muscles. The goal is to reduce the effects of sacroiliac joint dysfunction, improving the biomechanical function of the pelvis. The overall goal is to optimize uterine function allowing for a safer, easier birth.
In the care of pregnant women, sacroiliac and pelvic dysfunction may contribute to dystocia (difficulty during labour). It has been proposed that sacral dysfunction can lead to pelvic misalignment and the tightening and torsion of specific pelvic muscles and ligaments. The resulting tension and their aberrant effect on the uterus may prevent the baby from comfortably assuming optimal birth position, proper labour progression, and natural, non-invasive birth outcomes. The correction of sacroiliac and pelvic dysfunction may have a positive effect on these causes of dystocia.
Obstetric research shows a decrease in undue stress from proper positioning of the fetus including proper development of the spine and nervous system. As well, chiropractic research shows effectiveness of the sacral adjustment on pelvic biomechanics.
