Looking forward to a great new year! It seems like every 365 days the entire world has a desire to hit the reset button. As Chiropractors we are vitally aware that a neurological reset occurs with every adjustment we deliver. As I jump forward into 2024 my reset is actually a reflection, or look backwards, on the 33 Principles that create order in a Chiropractor’s practice life.
It seems that each and every day I get a request to share a perspective on how I would report and relate scans and their scores. That’s a great thing in my life. I love empowering DC’s and eventually their patients with my certainty and my skills in communication. Years ago, I started to create a “recipe” for the ideal scan report. I knew it had to be based on the power of the philosophical principles for Chiropractic mixed with the science of recovery and resilience, sprinkled with the art of compelling language. It’s really why, in one of the busiest offices on the planet, I made the INSiGHT the centrepiece of all procedures. It became the hub for clinical assessments, reports and care planning. I recently saw a Toyota commercial that stated something like, “These are just cars until you begin to drive them”. It reminded me that great technologies, like cars and the INSiGHT scan technologies, need human interaction for them to be of any value. To empower your patients, you need to embrace the power that scans give you to become an amazing expert, storyteller and adjusting machine.
Applying the 33 Principles
The journey of scan interpretation and reporting has been an exciting one for me. I am enthralled by the ever-present nuances that emerge as I apply the 33 Principles to the remarkable data being collected within the functioning nervous system. When we use the 33 Principles to understand and apply our role as chiropractors, we recognize the supremacy of clear communication via the nervous system to allow the expression of neovitalistic outcomes.
The act of analysing and adjusting vertebral subluxations “arouses innate” and clears obstructions, allowing the nervous system to communicate through new and proven pathways most efficiently.
When you apply the 33 Principles in your thoughtful preparation and care planning while using INSiGHT scans, you can have it all! There is always an interplay between the pathogenic approach and the salutogenic approach allowing you to be the expert in addressing so much more than structural spinal limitations and pain based symptomatology while never leaving the chiropractic paradigm.
In the pathogenic approach:
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We can look at scans through a biomedical lens very accurately and consider how external forces are impacting the function of the structure
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Deduce the neurofunctional pathways and associated responses being hyper or hypo to a normative baseline.
Through the salutogenic approach:
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When we analyse the data through the vitalistic lens we see an intelligent system working innately to reorganise itself to a more efficient and productive outcome.
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Instead of hypertonic muscles and palpatory tautness we see limited neurological efficiency described as dysponesis and an intelligent compensatory, protective sequence in play.
The Perfect(ed) Trifecta
The complexity of the nervous system demands a simple yet comprehensive approach to analysing the impact that vertebral subluxations have on its performance. The Motor and Autonomic nervous systems (ANS) are the primary functional divisions of the CNS. By combining a global and regional assessment of the ANS combined with a spinal-neuro motor analysis, a neurological “report card” can be created that instantly tracks improvements. These three non-invasive sensor assessments can be performed in minutes and used on any aged patient, from newborns to seniors. Here is a brief synopsis as to how it all comes together.
HRV scans provide such valuable data
To begin a look at the trifecta, we set out to observe the unobservable. This is the “something extra” that chiropractic patients receive when we analyse Heart Rate Variability. These patients are the luckiest people as we can literally watch them increase their adaptability and raise their capacity to take on more as they optimise their potential. HRV offers the most respected data to track resiliency as the nervous system reorganises itself while under chiropractic care. The INSiGHT’s remarkable neuroPULSE report, the “rainbow graph” plots and reports the intricate changes in vagal tone making it easy for anyone to understand their adaptive reserve and plan for a healthier future.
Gravity sucks!
Regardless of all the stresses that come into our lives, the one immutable force that plays on our body and spine is gravity. It “costs” a tremendous amount of energy to function in gravity…. and that’s if everything is aligned and in balance! A few years back, a brilliant engineering and chiropractic group looked at the energy cost of spinal misalignments using surface EMG sensors. They determined what a well adjusted spine would “cost” in muscle energy expenditure and then they analysed what a subluxated spinal system would “cost”. The difference is remarkable!!! This wasted energy not only fatigued the spinal postural muscles but impacted the entire energy and health of the patient! Vertebral subluxations could now be tracked through the Motor nervous system! Oh, by the way, that research and chiropractic group became known as CLA!
Taking the temperature of a subluxation
Once the global resiliency and adaptive reserve is calculated using HRV and then the amount of wasted postural energy is analysed using EMG, the final piece of the puzzle is to look at the impact of the spinal or regional ANS. This is where a thermographic scan of the spine comes in. Within 20 seconds, a comprehensive analysis of the temperature regulation along the spine can detect localised heating and cooling trends. Neither of these trends are considered to be healthy and so a “thermal map” can easily be created to observe the impact that the vertebral subluxation has had on the very nerves that regulate organs and glands!
Now we have the complete trifecta that delivers a comprehensive approach to identifying and managing the vertebral subluxation! The system, known as the INSiGHT neuroTECH, is a proven technological way to gather and combine all 3 types of data. Nothing compares with the certainty that this trifecta provides for the chiropractic clinician and the patient!
Healing is a nonlinear event
It’s time to realise what our philosophy has told us all along and what finely calibrated instruments confirm. Healing is sequential but chaotic by design. When we interpret scans from our principled perspective, we see opportunity and not failure. We see intelligence unfolding. We don’t exist in a ‘Pollyanna world full of unicorns and roses’. Rather, life and living is messy, but purposeful and we see that unfold in scan sequences. When we see more energy being expended on a second or third EMG scan, it should be perceived as a natural response, such as when a fever occurs as a child fights a virus; intelligent energy usage with a purpose. We are much more than simply intentful practitioners. We use evidence informed approaches because we are clinicians dedicated to unleashing the story of our philosophical tenets through valid, reliable and reproducible actions. Whether that action is a physical exam, a technological assessment or an adjustment, the intent to heal is brought together with the logic and experience of a myriad of scientific proofs whose outcomes align so that health improves and ultimately life is expressed with more ease.
How cool is it to be a chiropractor of conscience, telling our story, delivering our masterpieces of adjustments and care planning while using INSiGHT scans that were designed specifically for that purpose!
Thanks for reading!
Want to dig deeper into the 33 and connect it to today’s scanning technologies? Check out this YouTube video called The Neuro Adaptive Revolution.
