Federal Way Chiropractic, Tracing The History Of An Effective Method Of Therapy

Practitioners at Federal Way chiropractic recommend a proactive approach to taking care of the body. What this means is that someone does not have to wait until disease symptoms are manifest before taking steps to stay healthy.

The human body has innate mechanisms for ensuring optimal functionality of all its parts and systems. Standard medical care puts great premium on application of medication and surgery to cure ills. This approach usually ignores the body’s own defense and immune mechanisms.

On the face of it, this sounds like a revolutionary idea but it is not so. Human societies have for eons used physical manipulation to get rid of diseases. This is clear from written records and archaeological evidence from ancient civilizations for instance in the Egyptian, Syrian and Mayan empires.

The Greek philosopher Hippocrates who lived around 400B. C. E. Held views consistent with chiropractic methods. He is universally acknowledged as the father of modern medicine. A manual he wrote contained wide ranging instructions on how to perform physical manipulations as curative procedures. In particular, he pointed out that the spine is key to curing a host of diseases.

As a modern profession, chiropractic health care can be traced back to 1895. In that year, a physician by the name Daniel David Palmer managed to restore hearing to a patient after a course of manual stimulation of the neck. Two years later he founded a school catering to chiropractics school that still trains chiropractors today.

The mainstream medical practitioners did not embrace this new school of thought and mounted a spirited attack. Palmer was even jailed on account of his teaching and practice. This did not stop his son from carrying on his work and research. Today there is a definite philosophy founded on sound scientific methodology that guides the practice.

The American Medical Association has for long opposed the acceptance of this practice. This opposition was greatest in the 1940s but continued until the 1980s when a landmark judgment ruled that the association had conspired to destroy the this profession. Since then, there has been greater acceptance and mutual respect for the two fields.

What mainly differentiates chiropractors from other medical caregivers is their specialization. A chiropractor is trained to diagnose and provide relief from a range of problems caused by what is called vertebral subluxation. The term is used to refer to dislocation of a bone in the spinal column causing pain or organ malfunction.

The term adjustment is used in reference to physical manipulations used to adjust the dislocated bones back to their place and thereby provide relief from pain and discomfiture. Patients are sometimes startled by a cracking sound that almost invariably results from a session of adjustment. There is no need to worry about it as it only indicates some gas popping out as the bones move back into position.

To ensure full treatment of subluxation a patient is usually required to make return visits to a chiropractic clinic. The adjustments may also need to be complemented with other physical exercises to ensure complete body fitness.

Mike is a chiropractor in Federal Way.