How Do Chiropractors Know Where to Adjust?

By: Dr. Shane Davidson DC

Chiropractors can help with various health problems, especially those related to muscles, nerves, and the backbone. They often use their hands or special tools to make corrections and fix your body’s posture, alignment, and communication between nerves. But how do they figure out where to make these corrections?

4 Ways a Chiropractor Determines Where to Adjust

Chiropractors use regular tests to find out what’s causing your problems. When you go to their office, they’ll check your medical history, ask about your daily life, and sometimes take X-ray pictures.

They do this to understand how bad your symptoms are and what’s causing them. Everyone’s situation is different, so it’s important to be truthful when they ask you questions. Here are four ways chiropractors find the places in your body that need fixing.

Symptoms And Imaging Tests

If your chiropractor thinks there might be inflammation or serious problems because of your symptoms, they might suggest taking X-ray pictures. It’s important to tell them exactly what’s going on with your body so they can make the right decisions.

Walking and Body Position Assessment

Chiropractors have a good understanding of how our bodies naturally move and how we should stand. They use this knowledge to figure out where to make adjustments when you have issues.

To do this, they do a basic assessment of the way you walk and how you hold your body. This gives them important information about your muscles and bones. They pay attention to how you move when you walk, sit, squat, lean, stand, jog, and run. By watching these movements, they can spot the areas in your body that might need some help.

Range Of Motion

On your first visit to the chiropractor, they might ask you to do different movements to see how well your joints can move. This step is often done because many problems that bring people to a chiropractor can make it hard to move and bend like you normally would.

The chiropractor will watch while you do these movements to figure out which parts of your body are having the most trouble and how much they hurt. By looking at how well you can move, they can find out what’s wrong and decide if they need to do more tests to learn more.

Joint and Body Palpation

Palpation is a hands-on technique used by chiropractors to examine the body’s movement and condition. Our body moves in three main ways: front and back (frontal), top and bottom (transverse), and left and right (sagittal).

1. Front and back: This means dividing the body into two parts, one in the front and the other in the back.

2. Top and bottom: It’s like splitting the body into upper and lower sections.

3. Left and right: This involves thinking about the body’s left and right sides.

During palpation, the chiropractor uses their fingers to touch and feel different parts of your body. They assess factors like how an area feels, its temperature, its flexibility, and any pulsations (similar to a heartbeat). They may use light or deep pressure to identify areas that are painful or not aligned correctly. Palpation helps chiropractors understand what’s going on in your body and guides them in making adjustments to improve your health and comfort.

Trusted Chiropractic Clinic In Lincoln

If you need a skilled chiropractor to fix problems with your bones and muscles, it’s important to choose someone experienced and certified to work on your spine.

At Novo Chiropractic clinic, we provide complete healthcare that looks at your whole well-being. Our team includes trained chiropractors, physical therapists, acupuncturists, massage therapists, and medical doctors all in one place. We aim to find out what’s wrong with you and provide treatments that work.

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Dr. Shane Davidson Lincoln, NE Chiropractor
Doctor of Chiropractic
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