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About Chiropractic
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What is Chiropractic?
Chiropractic is a healthcare discipline which emphasizes the inherent recuperative power of the body to health itself without the use of drugs or surgery. The practice of chiropractic focuses on the relationship between structure (primarily the spine) and function (as coordinated by the nervous system) and how that relationship affects the preservation and restoration of health. In addition, doctors of chiropractic recognize the value and responsibility of working in cooperation with other health care professionals when in the best interest of the patient.
The practice and procedures which may be employed by Doctors of Chiropractic are based on the academic and clinical training received in and through accredited Chiropractic colleges and include, but are not limited to, the use of current diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Such procedures specifically include the adjustment and manipulation of the spinal column and adjacent tissues.
What are the Essential Principals of Chiropractic?
Doctors of Chiropractic often refer to "the philosophy, art and science of chiropractic" and in doing so are quoting the profession's founder, D.D. Palmer. The word philosophy is used with the meaning of essential guiding principals, primarily holism and homeostasis.
1) Holism. This is a broadly accepted principal, reflected in the World Health Organization's definition of health as: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." The purpose of chiropractic care is not merely to relieve a symptom or address a cause of that symptom, important as these things may to the patient, but to provide holistic care. It is to treat the whole person or "to optimize health."
Therefore, chiropractors use a variety of conservative (non-invasive, as opposed to drugs and surgery) methods of management including manual care, nutrition, exercise, advice on lifestyle and posture and patient counseling and motivation. Patients report high satisfaction rates -- for back pain, three times the satisfaction rate for medical care -- partly because they now understand their problems and how to prevent future pain and disability in the context of their whole lives.
2) Homeostasis. Once more this is a basic and broadly accepted principal. It is that the body has its own inherent healing power and ability to resist disease. Its tendency is to return to normal health. The founding generation of chiropractors called this the "Innate" or "the power within." The body's innate recuperative power is affected by and integrated through the nervous system.
