How Are Chiropractic Adjustments Performed?

Video Transcript

"Okay, so we talked about what the adjustment is, and now I'm actually going to show you a little bit of how I do it and explain how some people do it a little bit differently but I will show you how I do it. I'm actually going to adjust this person today. Many people do this a little bit differently, but one thing that I actually do in my assessment is I do check leg length. In her case, this one here is slightly shorter. It's about a 1/4 inch shorter than this one. That doesn't mean that her left leg is short. It just means in this case she's presenting with it shorter. I use that. Some people that as a direct information as to how they're going to adjust. I use it to get just one more piece of the puzzle. To me, finding out where I'm adjusting and actually making the adjustment, it's all combining a bunch of pieces to find the right spot to make the adjustment. On her, the next thing that I would do is I'll come up here and actually feel how each part of the pelvis is moving. I'm starting here in the bottom. Start with the pelvis, feel how each side's moving, then I can feel for the bottom bone in the back, which is called the sacrum, well next to bottom bone. The bottom one's the coccyx, but we don't want to adjust that one in here anyway. The sacrum, I feel for the movement of the sacrum here. Basically what I find on her is the left side of the sacrum is slightly posterior. It's slightly towards the back and it's not moving that way very well. In this particular case, the type of adjustment I'm going to use actually uses this piece right here. It's a drop piece we call it. What it does is it actually raises up. It raises up about half an inch, then when I apply pressure, it drops back to its original position. That's just used as an assist to make the adjustment. It makes it easier on the patient. I make my contact onto the bone that I need adjust and push it in the direction that it needs to go. The table drops to there, and I just do that 3 times to make that I get the adjustment complete. That's just one way of adjusting the low back."