Patient Participation in Chiropractic Adjustments

Video Transcript

"Now we are going to discuss what the patient's role in the adjusting process is. This all depends of course which type of technique your chiropractor does use. If it's an instrument it is going to be different. Different types of manual techniques require different patient positions or participation. For the sake of today we are going to basically deal with a couple different styles of diversified adjusting and for the neck adjustment and for the thoracic or mid-back adjustment the patient is going to be laying face up in what we call the supine position, okay? Really the major goal for any patient in any type of getting adjusted is really just to relax as best as they possibly can. The more relaxed they are the more relaxed the spine is and the more easily the joints are going to move. If they are tense, if they are rigid, if they are hesitant and fighting back it is a lot more difficult and pain starts to come in that way. If they are more relaxed you are usually not going to experience pain with the adjustment. For the neck adjustment basically the patient is going to be lying just like this, completely relaxed and usually the hands are going to be over the stomach. If they are feeling a little bit anxious we may have them bend both of their knees, bring both knees up, and this is just going to take extra stress off the back and off the neck as well. In terms of the thoracic adjustment what we are going to do is an anterior adjustment and basically we are going to be approaching it from anterior/posterior to make the adjustment happen and in this case typically the patient will have their legs extended again and relaxed and what they are going to typically do is give themselves a big hug in this kind of position and just hold real tight and again this is going to separate out their shoulder blades and give us more room to work with in terms of that mid-back and get those joints more in a position to receive the adjustment."