Our Process
Our Process
Our 3-Step Progressive Strategy
Over 90% of new patients present after a traumatic event or due to acute pain. Our goal is to get you out of pain as quickly as possible and provide you with tools to be prevent reinjury. To achieve this, we use a three-step progressive patient strategy where we are continuously evaluating your progress towards restoring normal function.
Step #1: Get you out of pain.
Your initial visit lasts approximately 45 minutes. During this time, we conduct an in-depth review of your history together. Your health and complications are unique to you. Together, we develop an individualized treatment plan based on your health history and the results of your physical examination and orthopedic testing.
Orthopedic testing attempts to reproduce your pain, identify a muscle or joint weakness, and create a comprehensive picture of your complaint. Types of physical evaluations we utilize include:
- Range of Motion
- Palpation
- Muscle strength and resistance testing
- Posture examination
- Stability testing
- Joint assessment
- Reflex testing
After we review your individual physical testing results, we’ll begin your first treatment. It is our goal to treat every patient the first visit to begin healing. To aid in this goal, we request that you bring any imaging (MRI, CT scans, or reports) to your initial visit. Your treatments will consist of a combination of the following techniques:
- Chiropractic Manipulative Therapy
- Manual Therapies
- Traction or decompression
- Myofascial release techniques
- Graston
- Stretching, strengthening, and preventative exercises
- Spinal stabilization exercises
- Trigger Point Therapy
- Taping or bracing
- Activator
- Postural or ergonomic correction and coaching
- Orthotic Support
- Vitamins
At the end of your first treatment, we’ll review your entire initial visit, recommend any home activities (stretching, exercises, rest, ice, heat, compression, elevation, etc.) and schedule your next treatment.
Step #2: Identify initiators of your pain and assist in healing.
During your second, and all subsequent treatments, we review your progress, continue to search for the root cause of your complaint, and focus on preventing reinjury.
Our goal during this stage is to identify pain initiators in your daily life which are causing reinjury or preventing you from fully healing. As you progress, we fine tune your individual treatment plan. During this step we give you the tools to be able to do the things that you love to do. We do this through two methods:
- We perform mini assessments each visit. This will be a review of any events, changes, pain, weaknesses, restricted movements, or anything that’s occurred since the prior treatment.
- We increase the time between visits. Our goal is to get you out of pain and back to a normal routine. We call the time between visits holding. As your pain and inflammation decreases, your treatments continue to hold, and your visit frequency will decrease.
We view your path to recovery as a partnership. At first, most of the responsibility will be on our office, however as your condition improves a role switch becomes necessary for optimal healing. During Step #2 your active participation in restoring normal function allows treatment frequency to decrease. At this point, Step #3 begins.
Step #3: Self-monitoring and prevention.
As you progress, your reliance and frequency of treatments decreases. During the last stage of our progressive patient strategy, you utilize all of the home activities, identify and avoid initiators, and take an active care approach to preventing reinjury of your initial complaint.
Recovery periods vary patient to patient and are complicated by symptoms lasting longer than a week, severe pain, more than four previous episodes, or preexisting structural or pathologic conditions. Every patient and their injury are unique. However, the goals are the same:
- Get you out of pain as quickly as possible.
- Identify initiators of your pain and assist in healing.
- Provide you with the tools to be able to self-monitor and prevent reinjury.