Healthy Snack for the Kids…Wonderful and Easy Recipe!
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Chiropractic Treatments for Whiplash
.Because each individual case of whiplash is different, it is not possible to generalize about the chiropractic whiplash treatment.
The appropriate chiropractic treatment is unique to each whiplash injury and is directed at the primary dysfunctions detected during the chiropractic exam.
However, chiropractors commonly employ different chiropractic treatments for whiplash, often including:
- Manipulation
- Muscle relaxation and/or stimulation
- Various exercises
- Ergonomic and lifestyle changes.
This article explains when, why and how chiropractors may employ these whiplash treatments for neck pain, shoulder pain, back pain, and other related symptoms.
Chiropractic Manipulation for Whiplash
The primary whiplash treatment for joint dysfunction, spinal manipulation involves the chiropractor gently moving the involved joint into the direction in which it is restricted.
Also known as a chiropractic adjustment, spinal manipulation may involve the application of a short thrust in that direction. In many cases, instead of a thrust, a slow mobilizing movement is used by the chiropractor.
Muscle Relaxation or Stimulation as Whiplash Treatments
The chiropractor’s primary whiplash treatment for related muscle dysfunction, muscle relaxation and/or stimulation consist of gentle stretches to the muscle that has excessive tension or repeated contractions of the muscle that is inhibited.
If the muscle is very tight, a more vigorous stretch may be applied by the chiropractor. Gentle finger pressure techniques may be applied to trigger points to relieve the pain associated with the tight muscles.
McKenzie Exercises and Stabilization/Sensorimotor Activities
Chiropractors may employ different types of exercises, including McKenzie exercises and/or stabilization and sensorimotor exercises, to help treat patients with whiplash injuries.
McKenzie exercises are specifically designed to reduce disc derangement related to a whiplash injury. They consist of simple movements that are initially done in the office but make for an easy transition to self-care at home. McKenzie exercises also help the patient take an active role in his or her own recovery.
Stabilization and sensorimotor exercise approaches are designed to correct faulty movement patterns in routine activities and everyday life. Such whiplash treatment trains the nervous system to better coordinate and control movement patterns and improves the ability of the neck muscles to maintain stability of the neck.
These exercises are designed to help in a major trauma, such as a fall or whiplash during a motor vehicle accident, or in “microtrauma” from simple things such as being jostled in a crowd, playing sports or performing occupational or home jobs that require physical effort.
Chiropractic Advice on Ergonomic and Lifestyle Changes
These whiplash treatment suggestions stress improvements for performing everyday activities with minimal strain to the body. The chiropractic advice addresses factors in an individual’s work, home or recreational activities that perpetuate the dysfunctions that result from the whiplash accident.
Additionally, spine care professionals at the chiropractic clinic may teach the patient better “use of self” and, if necessary, stress reduction methods to help chiropractic problems.
Whiplash Treatment in Chiropractic Care
The whiplash treatment plan developed by the chiropractor for each specific problem may include one or more of these approaches and may involve others as well.
In addition to his or her whiplash treatment plan, the doctor of chiropractic might give a referral to another health professional, such as a medical specialist if it is deemed appropriate.
Today’s article was written by Donald Murphy, DC and is shared from the following website: https://www.spine-health.com/treatment/chiropractic/chiropractic-treatments-whiplash. Today’s image was shared from the following website: https://seriousaccidents.com/personal-injury/whiplash-injuries/
Teens, Back Pain and Chiropractic Care
Looking at the big picture, low back pain is a big problem. The condition affects more than 600 million people worldwide, including over one-third of all Americans—more than the number of people affected by diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined. The financial burden (medical care plus lost productivity) caused by chronic lower back pain in America exceeds $550 billion annually.
That said, one of the saddest aspects of chronic lower back pain is that it doesn’t discriminate between adults and children. And in an era when teens’ musculoskeletal systems are particularly at risk because of reduced physical activity and poor posture (thanks to heavy school backpacks, improper sitting ergonomics and lots of time spent on mobile devices), this problem is only growing larger. In addition, a number of studies have already indicated that lower back pain in adolescents is strongly associated with the development of chronic lower back pain later in life. That’s the bad news for teens. However, the good news is that those adolescents who have been successfully treated to eliminate lower back pain in their youth have a lower risk of developing chronic lower back pain as they grow older.
So it’s natural that the medical community is keenly interested in learning which treatments are most successful in terms of eliminating the lower back pain itself and in preventing it from recurring later in life. This interest led to a recent study. The aim of the study was to determine which of the commonly-available treatment methodologies were most effective. To determine this, researchers performed a meta-analysis of existing studies published in English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese to measure which of the treatments used in these studies produced the most consistently positive outcomes in terms of pain, disability, flexibility, endurance, and mental health. The researchers found studies that produced data for 11 treatment groups and 5 control groups involving a total of 334 children and adolescents, and then compared the data.
Their findings were both strong and definitive. Of all the treatment methodologies used in the individual studies, the ones most effective in producing short-term and long-term positive outcomes in the five areas studied were those that involved therapeutic physical conditioning and manual therapy. That is, treatments provided by “hands on” practitioners such as chiropractors, osteopaths, and physical therapists.
These therapies, commonly involving joint and spinal manipulation and ultrasound treatment to reduce pain, were subjectively found to be more effective by the patients than other treatments. The patients’ subjective analysis was confirmed in most of the studies by clinician assessments. Naturally, these “manual therapy” treatment options were preferable in many other ways as well, because they avoided reliance on potentially addictive painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin, epidural steroid injections, and surgery.
These findings confirm what Doctors of Chiropractic have observed in their own clinics. Over the years, we have seen many patients (of all ages) benefit from the manual therapies we use to provide relief for their lower back pain. So if you (or your children) experience lower back pain—whether occasional or chronic—contact your chiropractor and ask him or her to explain to you the treatment options available, and what they can do to relieve your symptoms and allow you to enjoy life free from pain once again.
A Healthy Rice Recipe to Start the Week!
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Have Some No-Guilt Chocolate Coconut Almond Granola for Breakfast!
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Why Does Back Pain Tend to Recur?
In a recent Consumer Reports survey, 88% of more than 14,000 subscribers who had lower back pain indicated that it had recurred during the prior 12 months. While other academic studies suggest that recurrence may be somewhat less widespread—perhaps affecting between a third and half of all back pain sufferers—it’s very clear that many people experience back pain as a recurring problem.
Professor Doune Macdonald and fellow researchers at the University of Queensland in Brisbane were interested in learning why some people experienced a recurrence of their back pain while others did not. Their investigation found an association between recurrence of low back pain and altered muscle activity in the deep muscle fibers of the lumbar spine. These muscles are also referred to as your “core” muscles, the ones that are most targeted in Pilates training. Your core muscles give strength, balance and stability to the back, and consist of muscles in the lower back, abdomen and pelvis.
The most important of the core muscles for the stability of your back are the multifidus. These run along the length of the spine and help to take some of the pressure off the vertebral discs so that weight is more evenly distributed along the length of the back. When working properly, the multifidus muscles are activated even before any movement takes place, so as to protect the spine against injury from a sudden load of weight (such as when lifting a heavy box or bending over to tie your shoes).
According to a study published in the journal Painin 2009, Macdonald and colleagues found that the multifidus muscles showed later activation in those with recurrent low back pain than in the backs of healthy subjects. Any delay in muscle activation can be a potential problem, as a sudden loading of weight on the spine when it is unprepared can lead to abnormal bending and twisting of the spine, increasing the risk of injury.
Possessing strong multifidus muscles is one of the obvious solutions to preventing the occurrence of low back pain. However, part of the problem is that once this set of muscles has been injured, the multifidus tends to atrophy due to disuse while the patient is healing. Prolonged bed rest is one of the worst ways to recover from low back pain because it encourages the multifidus to atrophy even further.
Chiropractic care that includes rehabilitation exercises and spinal adjustments has been shown to improve the function of the multifidus muscles. Your chiropractor can suggest exercises you can do at home that will strengthen your core muscles in between adjustments. The adjustments themselves will align your spine so that it functions properly and will not put excess strain on the supporting multifidus, thus reducing the likelihood of a recurrence of low back pain.
How Do Chiropractors Measure Pain?
Measuring the amount of pain being experienced by a patient is an essential part of chiropractic assessment prior to treatment. However, unlike objective measures such as the degree of spinal curvature or the range of joint movement, the amount of pain cannot be determined directly, but is instead inferred from the patient themselves or from signs usually associated with it. These two methods—patient self-reporting and inference by examination—are the basic tools chiropractors will use to assess a patient’s pain level.
While the degree of discomfort reported by a patient is an important guide, the subjective experience of pain means that each person will have a different level at which they call pain mild, moderate or extreme. Likewise, patients will all have varying degrees of verbal and physical reactions to different levels of soreness. Taken together, however, self-reporting and examination provide a combination of evidence which can be used to determine pain levels with a reasonable degree of accuracy.
Most chiropractors treating a patient will use an assessment form that asks about the kind of problem that the patient is currently experiencing and the amount of pain it is causing. A basic diagram of the body may also be used to mark locations and levels of pain. Further questions, either in the form of a questionnaire or through a patient interview, may be asked to ascertain the frequency of pain and the nature of movements and activities that may trigger pain or worsen it.
The level of perceived discomfort is often assessed using a pain scale in which the patient is asked to assign a figure to their experience such as from 0 (no pain) to 10 (extreme pain). Although such a scale will be subjective, most patients demonstrate a good deal of internal consistency when it comes to reporting relative pain levels. This means that patient-reporting using this type of pain scale can be useful in determining whether a condition is responding to treatment over time or getting worse, as well as in determining how pain levels fluctuate over the course of a day or in response to certain kinds of activity. In addition to the simple pain scale, there are several specially designed questionnaires that are also used to assess the degree of pain and disability associated with spinal injuries, such as the Quebec Back Pain Disability Scale.
Chiropractic assessment of a patient actually begins the moment the patient walks in the door. A skilled chiropractor can tell much about a condition and how much pain someone is in by their overall posture, how they walk, facial expressions of discomfort and involuntary verbalization. While being examined, palpation and movement of problem areas will often give rise to further articulation and tensing against painful movement, which provide further clues both to the location and degree of soreness. A chiropractor may use pain scales during the examination so that patients can communicate in a more focused way how much a certain movement or palpation hurts. Marking these pain levels on a chart provides a baseline measurement that a chiropractor can use to judge the effectiveness of treatment over time.
Although pain measurement is only one method of assessing both the degree of injury and success of treatment, it is an important one. Pain is both a clear sign that something is wrong and an impediment to normal daily activity. In contrast, a reduction in pain following chiropractic therapy increases feelings of wellbeing and provides subjective evidence of improvement. For the chiropractor too, this is an essential indication that they are doing something right. Together with other signs such as increased strength, range of movement and endurance, reduced pain is a welcome indicator that a patient is making progress.
Happy Labor Day! Here’s a Simple Healthy Salad for a BBQ!
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“Freshman 15” Facts and Fiction
The “Freshman 15” idea has been around for more than 20 years. It’s the popular notion that students gain about 15 pounds during their freshman year in college as a result of being away from home for the first time without any parental supervision over what (and how much) is eaten. Intuitively, this seems to make a lot of sense. The combination of easy access to the college cafeteria, lots of new campus delivery and takeout options and unlimited late-night snacking potential make it more likely that a student’s eating patterns will shift, often resulting in larger portions containing more fat, sugar, and salt. This can be especially true for young people who find themselves in a brand new academic, athletic and social setting filled with excitement and—yes—anxiety. But how much truth is there—really—in the Freshman 15?
The Freshman 15 By the Numbers
Like many common catchphrases, the Freshman 15 is shorthand for a combination of fact and fiction. First of all, it IS true that many students gain weight during the first two years at college, and that most of the weight gain tends to occur in the first semester of the freshman year. BUT the effect is usually closer to the “Freshman 3 to 10” than the “Freshman 15.” A study conducted by researchers Jay Zagorsky at Ohio State University and Patricia Smith from the University of Michigan, Dearborn took a close look at the numbers. The investigators analyzed data from 7,418 teenagers who took part in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and were followed up on each year thereafter. They found that the average amount of weight gain during the freshman year in college was actually 2.5 pounds for women and 3.5 pounds for men. In addition, 25% of college freshmen actually lost weight during that year. Only 5% to 10% of freshmen really gained 15 pounds.
It’s Just as Much About Time of Life as it is Environment
Researchers Zagorsky and Smith discovered that young adults gained about a pound and a half per year, whether they were in college or not. This suggests that weight gain may be part of a broader lifestyle shift that comes with new independence. So what difference does the college environment itself actually make? According to an Auburn University study, the average student gained 11.7 pounds over the course of four years. Even with dorm living that allows constant access to snacks, fast food, and the all-you-can-eat college cafeteria, it did not make a large amount of difference in how much weight students gained. Those who gained the most weight were those who drank large amounts of alcohol.
Zagorsky noted, “College students don’t face an elevated risk of obesity because they gain a large amount of weight during their freshman year. Instead, they have moderate but steady weight gain throughout early adulthood. Anyone who gains 1.5 pounds every year will become obese over time, no matter their initial weight.” This is a very important observation because young adults who gradually put on pounds—whether or not they’re attending college—are establishing a pattern of weight gain that will almost certainly cause health problems if it continues.
What Incoming Freshman Should Know
For those going off to college, the important things to keep in mind in order to avoid gaining weight are basic rules that apply to everyone:
- Eat reasonable portions of a variety of whole foods (including lean meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit).
- Lay off fast food that is chock full of fat, sugar, and salt.
- Avoid snacking between meals (Eat a piece of fruit if you feel hungry.).
- If you must drink alcohol, drink it only in moderation.
- Make it a point to exercise regularly.
By keeping this handful of healthy eating and exercise principles in mind, freshmen can get a positive start on their college years and create lifestyle habits that will serve them well throughout their lifetimes.
How Do the Microbes in Your Digestive Tract Affect Your Health?
Our bodies are filled with microbes, including bacteria, fungi and viruses. The complete collection of microbes in our body is called our “microbiome”. It is unique to us and is believed to affect our health in many different ways.
In our intestines, the most abundant microbe is bacteria. There is currently great scientific interest in whether these bacteria might somehow play a role in either causing disease or preventing it. Michael Snyder, PhD, Director of Stanford University’s Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine says, “There’s a good chance your microbiome is associated with every disease you can think of. And the area where bacteria have a huge impact is your gut.”
The Role of Gut Bacteria
Gut bacteria are absolutely essential to our lives and our health. Gut bacteria help us digest our food, make vitamins and signal immune responses. Scientists have discovered that everyone’s collection of gut bacteria is unique, and those with diseases often have a different amount or combination of gut bacteria than people without those diseases. The goal of current research is to discover what mix of bacteria healthy people have versus the mix that people with disease have, and to find ways to improve the mix for better health. In this way, doctors might also be able to detect certain diseases earlier, leading to more effective treatment.
Which Diseases May Be Linked to Gut Bacteria?
Scientists are still exploring this question, but studies have shown an association between gut bacteria and obesity, Chron’s disease, colon cancer, ulcerative colitis, and diabetes. One recent study showed that people with more of a certain inflammatory bacteria in their gut and fewer of another kind of beneficial bacteria are more likely to have rheumatoid arthritis.
Interestingly, gut bacteria may even be connected with cognitive and psychological disorders such as depression, ADD, anxiety, autism, OCD and Alzheimer’s disease. This connection may be due to the gut microbes’ ability to create molecules that impact brain function.
How Can We Improve Our Mix of Gut Bacteria to Achieve Better Health?
Rigorous research into the human microbiome is still in its infancy. However, it is safe to say that not all types and combinations of intestinal bacteria are created equal when it comes to their effect on our broader health. There is also some evidence that we may be able to influence the mix of microbes in our gut through our food choices. Just to be clear—this is NOT to say that changing any one particular aspect of your diet—substituting one sort of food for another, for instance—will result in a cure for any particular disease. However, do we know enough about a healthy overall diet and its impact on our body’s function and well-being to be able to recommend lowering sugar intake (sugar, bread, pasta, potatoes) and increasing fruits, vegetables, lean meats and healthy fats (olive oil, avocados, etc.). These changes contribute to a healthier nutritional profile, which clearly leads to better overall health and weight maintenance.
Some nutritional experts also recommend eating fermented foods containing live active cultures (such as yogurt, kimchee, kefir, miso, kombucha and sauerkraut) or taking probiotic supplements to support the colonies of “good” bacteria that live inside your gut. If you do choose to take probiotic supplements, there are a few things you should keep in mind:
- The probiotic supplement you choose must contain the right strains of bacteria to promote good health.
- The probiotic supplement must be of a good quality so that the bacteria strains they contain are active when you take them.
- Your digestive system is a very hostile environment. For probiotic supplements to do any good, enough of the good bacteria in them must be able to reach your intestines alive.
Nutrition can be a very complex subject, and our understanding of it is constantly evolving based on scientific research and clinical experience. If you’re interested in learning more about nutrition and health, please call us at Oblander Chiropractic at 406-652-3553 or visit our office!