Thank you for joining me again this evening for our nightly podcasts. I perform these podcasts in the hopes that you will be able to education yourself on the topics discussed so you can make better informed medical decisions regarding your health in the future. I am doctor Harrison Campbell of Restoration Health a premier sugar land chiropractors office. Previously we discussed sleep and the importance it has on the physical and the mental. Tonight, we will move beyond talking about sleep and discuss the mechanics behind adjusting. As the adjust is the foremost example of what visiting a chiropractor is about we can dive deep into what that actually entails.
As most people are the first treatment which comes to mind when seeing sugar land chiropractors is the chiropractic adjustment. The quick movement which generates pops in whichever joint is being adjusted and the patient feels a sense of relief or a pressure being lifted. Beyond being able to move easier most people do not stop to think about what is occurring or how it occurred. Therefore we will be looking into the mechanics behind the chiropractic adjustment and if we have time looking into the effects the chiropractic adjustment has on the body.
The first and most important thing when performing an adjustment is understand what the adjustment is done for. There was a doctor at my chiropractic school who dropped a piece of advice early on in my education and it has stuck with my all this time. He said learning to adjust is only a fraction of what we do here at Texas Chiropractic College. Adjusting is not even the most important thing we teach. I could teach you to adjust patients adequately in only a couple of months and you would improve your technique over time. What the years of education are about is learning when not to adjust the patient, learning those red flags which determine a patient would not benefit from the adjustment you are about to do. That advice has stuck with me even to this day as I become one of the best sugar land chiropractors I can be.
Once we have determined whether it is proper to adjust the patient the next factor which is of utmost importance is speed. As sugar land chiropractors know a slow adjustment is an uncomfortable adjustment. Quick movements produce a cleaner adjustment with less strain on the patient. This means the treatment as I said is first more comfortable. Secondly it does not affect the ligaments supporting the joint which you adjusted. Holding a ligament under a load or tension for a period of time will deform the ligament.
The best example for a ligament is like a plastic bag. This bag is flexible and can bend and twist with not problems. You can even stretch the bag a little without difficulty and the bag will maintain its shape. However, if you hold the bag under a load for a prolonged time the plastic will begin to stretch and be unable to return to its normal shape. This is called plastic deformation. Ligaments function under the same principles. They can bend and twist. They are capable of stretching to a point. Should you stretch beyond that point they will plastically deform.
The sugar land chiropractors who are skilled adjustors will adjust quickly which will reduce the period of time a ligaments is under load. This will nullify the risk of plastically deforming a ligament.
Once we have the speed or quickness down for adjusting the next course of action is to learn the planes in which we will be adjusting. Each joint has their own plane that is required to perform the adjustment depending on where it is. For joint in the spine for example you want to adjust through the joint line. Now sugar land chiropractors understand what I mean when I say through the joint line but most everyone else is scratching their heads. The joint line is the line which can be drawn through the joint surface. An example of this can be the knee.
When we are standing the joint line is going through the knee horizontally or front to back. Depending on which joint we discuss will determine what the joint line is, and therefore which direction the impulse of the adjust will go. Performing an adjustment with good speed but the wrong angle of trust for the adjustment will not produce a high quality adjustment. More than likely the adjustment will be uncomfortable for the patient at best or hurt the chiropractor at worst.
The final aspect we will discuss tonight is the joint slack. Each joint has a free range of motion it operates in. This is often call joint play by sugar land chiropractors as this is the motion a joint can attain without quote unquote moving. A better way to describe this is motion which can be created in the joint without the joint bending through hits range of motion. To create a high quality adjustment the chiropractor must remove the joint play and create the tension on the joint required for a great adjustment. Once this is attained they can then thrust with the adjustment. When done properly the patient is adjusted comfortably, they have a reduction in their symptoms, and they had a fantastic experience at the chiropractor’s office. When done improperly without the joint slack taken out the impulse is delivered the joint play will absorb the force of the adjustment. This will not hurt the patient but there will be no benefit from the adjustment and no force was able to act upon the joint.
Thank you for joining me again this evening for another great podcast. I hope you enjoyed the discussion on adjustments and the mechanics behind performing a chiropractic adjustment. As always should you or someone you know require a sugar land chiropractors services or simply have more questions on what was discussed please call Restoration Health today. We would love to schedule you an appointment and get you on the path to better health today. Thank you once again for joining us. Have a good night.