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Taking Care of Our Seniors With Conservative Care
Chiropractic offers a proactive approach to senior healthcare
Back pain is a scary reality for many seniors- indeed it is one of the leading causes of disability in old age. Why? The short answer is that aging is tough on our spines. It’s a mix of spinal degeneration, bone loss and muscle loss- in other words, all the pleasures of old age (we are being facetious). This coming together of circumstances creates crippling pain and life-changing spinal dysfunction. Such a serious threat to our wellbeing requires a proactive approach to healthcare. And if you are not finding enough relief from your symptoms with traditional healthcare, it could be worth considering chiropractic as an additional aid to your wellbeing.
The Stress Behind Hypermobility Syndrome
Hypermobility syndrome
We live in a society that is defined by the poor range of motion (ROM), that results from sedentary lifestyles and counterproductive behavior. But as much as 10% of our population is living with the opposite problem; the science may say that full range of motion is best, but what happens when you exceed that? Hypermobility refers to a condition in which your joints have too much ROM. Most often a hereditary trait, hypermobility, also known as congenital laxity, or ligamentous laxity, involves joints that can move beyond and even well beyond standard, healthy range of motion. It may seem that individuals who are double-jointed enjoy a natural advantage, and indeed it can be advantageous for young athletes who manage the condition appropriately. But the more startling reality for people with hypermobility occurs when their condition turns against them. Because the joints are so mobile, and so loose, they lack the stability necessary to prevent pain and injury. As you get older, the pain and dysfunction within a given hypermobile joint can become chronic, and then the condition becomes a syndrome.
Workplace Wellness Takes Center Stage
An idyllic future of workplace wellness
We see a day in the future when workplace ethics, and indeed federal, state and city laws, require employers to look out for the wellbeing of their employees. Of course it is in their best interest to maintain a happy, and therefore productive, base of workers, but the amount of money, time and resources involved in such an idea are often deemed too sharp of a hit on the bottom line and the worker continues to suffer. So what does workplace wellness mean? To us, it means a working environment in which employees feel comfortable, supported and able to access the basic means of maintaining their health on a daily basis. This may mean providing ergonomic work environments, better nutrition options, onsite training for workplace exercise techniques, etc. However, from the present standing, this is only a dream and for the majority of the workers, the onus is still upon the individual.
Reasons Why You Want to Improve Your Posture
Posture makes for a more comfortable life
When it comes to how you can influence your health on a daily basis, health experts usually iterate the same tenets: diet and exercise! Occasionally sleep makes it on the list, but rarely does posture. From this chiropractor’s perspective, posture is of equal importance to sleep diet and exercise in the daily fight for your well-being. No matter what your job or lifestyle, your spine is being compressed daily; one of the only defenses it has against this omnipresent compression is posture. Posture is a make or break factor in health: with good posture, you protect your spine while feeling and functioning better; with poor posture, you are actually increasing the amount of compression and there is no telling how much damage you are piling on your spine.
Preventing Scar Tissue Accumulation to Heal More Effectively
How scar tissue adhesion occurs
Scar tissue is a natural part of the healing process for any injury in the human musculoskeletal system. As your body attempts to heal, it produces a new, less mobile tissue to replace the older, more tensile original tissue. But the problem is how scar tissue interacts with your other, preexisting healthy tissues. Besides stiffness and pain in the local area, scar tissue adheres to healthy tissues, tying them down and making an entire region less mobile in the process. Because the tissues are bound up, the muscles become tighter and shorten in response. This leaves you weaker in an area where you need strength; less mobile in an area that needs mobility to heal. Even nerves can become trapped underneath the scar tissue adhesion, leading to impairment of the nervous system, as well as tingling, numbness and weakness in the local region.
Preventing Spinal Degeneration Starting Today
You will never have a better vantage point than now
Spinal health is, unfortunately, quite heavily influenced by age. And while it would be a bit hyperbolic to say that our spines face a flat-out race against time, it is true that we often outlive the sell-by date of our spines. Aging begins to affect the spine as early as early adulthood, and gets progressively more intense with the passing years. That means that now, today, is the best time to start taking a proactive approach to caring for your spine, thus avoiding many of the discomforts that come along with aging.
Say Hello to Your Center of Gravity
It’s a hypothetical point…
…with serious implications for balance, stability and alignment. It is a force to be reckoned with- a force that can improve wellness and prevent injury if you know how to use it. But most people don’t even know where it is, or how to find it. That might be because it’s hypothetical- your center of gravity (COG) is the point at which your body’s combined mass is located. The line of gravity, on its way to the center of the earth, passes through your COG, which is an integral component of your body’s base of support. So the first step to harnessing the power of your COG is finding it- here’s how:
The Importance of Lower Limb Biomechanics in Sports Performance
Protecting our main form of movement
Walking is part of what makes us human, which is why so many of us take it for granted. But in reality, each step represents a complex biomechanical process that calls into play a chain reaction of nerve signals, muscle activation, joint articulation. On either end of each step, your body is attempting to define its position in space, maintain balance and stabilize the transfer of forces that results from movement. Now, if we are just going for a walk, this process barely registers. But if you are looking to improve your athletic performance, biomechanics is one of the best places to start. Lower limb biomechanics play a huge role in our success on the playing field, both in terms of improving performance and preventing injury. Let’s take a look at this concept in a little more depth.
The Almighty Warm-Up: Benefits for Your Body
Are you someone who skips the warm-up?
The warm-up is an essential component of exercise. We frequently meet patients who freely admit that they skip warming up 90% of the time. Whether out of sheer laziness, lack of awareness or know-how, these people are actually working against themselves- they are getting less out of their exercise and, in extreme scenarios, could be setting themselves up for injury and dysfunction. So why is the warm-up so important? Read on to find out.
Flexion Addresses the Muscular Imbalances That Threaten Your Spine
Why choose flexion?
Not everyone should. Especially people with severe back pain, herniated discs, or sciatica. Flexion, which refers to movements that bend the spine forward, can increase compression in the lower back. However, for certain conditions, flexion can actually help redress the systemic muscular imbalance and spinal misalignment that is making your life so uncomfortable. At Family Chiropractic & Natural Healing Center, we use flexion-based exercises to help people with the following problems:
- Anterior pelvic tilt
- Spinal misalignment
- Core instability