About Chiropractic Care
Chiropractic care is a healthcare discipline that focuses on the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of neuromusculoskeletal issues of the body. The word ‘chiropractor’ comes from the Greek words cheir (meaning ‘hand’) and praktos (meaning ‘done’), i.e. ‘done by hand’, which has a literal reference to what chiropractors do in that they use their hands to perform manual adjustments and other hands-on treatment techniques for patient care.
Chiropractic care is a safe, research-based, conservative form of manual therapy that aims to alleviate pain, improve biomechanical issues, improve quality of life, and promote health and wellbeing. Your chiropractor uses the best available evidence and their clinical expertise to learn about your health history, current complaint, and examine your muscles, nerves, joints and overall movement. Their assessment helps diagnose issues affecting your body and make recommendations for your treatment.
Chiropractors are commonly thought of as healthcare providers who use joint manipulation techniques to treat your spine, but they are proficient in treating muscle, nerves, and joints throughout the entire body. While joint manipulation (or adjustments) of the spine and other areas of the body continues to be a central feature of chiropractic care, many chiropractors have developed a variety of practice styles featuring different therapeutic modalities to address patients’ unique needs and goals beyond focusing primarily on joint manipulation. The therapeutic goal of manipulation is to find areas that aren’t moving well and restore joint range of motion, reduce muscle tension and nerve irritation, reduce pain and stiffness and improve function.
Benefits of Acute Chiropractic Care
The primary goal at Petropolis Chiropractic & Therapeutic Care is to address and treat your problem effectively using a personalized therapeutic approach to get you better as quickly as possible. The goal of Dr. Petropolis as your chiropractor is to learn about patients as individuals, their habits, routines, and activities, and primary complaint, to ultimately address their issues within the treatment room and in their daily life. Follow-up chiropractic visits will be focused on manual therapy, which can include soft tissue techniques, spinal and extremity joint manipulation, joint mobilization, acupuncture, as well as education and rehabilitation exercises.
For many patients, pain relief is their goal and once their pain and other symptoms have improved, their plan of care ceases. This is common for pain and injury management, or ‘reactive’ treatment interventions. Therapeutic interventions performed by your chiropractor help to facilitate improvement along with education, advice, increased body awareness, rehabilitation, and lifestyle modifications. Many patients who begin chiropractic care find that they enjoy the benefits of treatment and would like to continue following the resolution of pain related to their initial complaint. This is where the idea of ‘functional maintenance care’ or ‘maintenance care’ can come in. This is a form of proactive treatment intervention.
Benefits of Preventative Chiropractic Treatment
Maintenance care is considered to be chiropractic treatment on a reduced yet consistent frequency that suits your body, your lifestyle, your activity level, and how you are feeling in between visits. At Petropolis Chiropractic & Therapeutic Care, it can be used as a ‘graduated’ or ‘progressed’ plan of care where people find they feel their best with regular chiropractic treatment at a certain frequency. This can be every 3-4 weeks, every 4-6 weeks, or sometimes at longer intervals based on what is right for you. This type of proactive care can help you feel your best with continued repetitive activities, sustained postures, occupational demands, childcare, and more. Maintenance care can also help reduce risk of injury or re-injury, enhance athletic recovery and performance, and help to maintain your active lifestyle as well as promote overall health and wellbeing.
Dr. Petropolis often refers to this stage in a plan of care as ‘functional maintenance care’ not just ‘maintenance care’. This is because it occurs after the initial complaint has been addressed and patients are doing well but are interested in consistent care on a reduced frequency to keep them feeling their best!
Working With Your Healthcare Team
Chiropractic care is often recommended for the primary treatment of many neuromusculoskeletal conditions and within an interprofessional team. Your chiropractor will work with you by referring to and coordinating with other healthcare professionals to best support your treatment plan and overall health.