In my opinion, the idea of allostatic load is incredibly useful when thinking of our future roles in chiropractic. Allostatic load is a term used to describe a person's cumulative stress. If the stress threshold is surpassed we get sick or disease sets in. The idea of using chiropractic care to treat a person's allostatic load is controversial to some medical providers because it reminds them of the past religious fanatics who developed our profession in the beginning. We mustn't forget what it is we are dealing with when a person is in pain. From what we are learning in neurophysiology, the reason people seek medical care is emotional drive. They will be coming to us to help them when in need, a humble state, for sure.
We will be relieving pain, increasing proper motion in joints, decreasing inflammation and calming the mind. As a society we are overworked and our bodies take the blunt of it. It is easy to get worn down to the point that gravity takes over and our anti-gravity muscles become overdeveloped. Our posture changes push our heads forward and arch our backs excessively. Every movement is inefficient and eventually when the stress of our daily existence exceeds our capacity to cope we begin experiencing pain. The question then is raised, is disease caused by mental health abnormalities? Is it a lack of coping skills that causes us to slump in our chairs or walk with our heads hanging low?
A few years ago I was in a motor development/motor learning graduate course at Boise State University - one semester prior to WSCC and we studied human movement using digital movie cameras. We used a neat program called Dart Fish which allows you to put a person on an X Y grid and analyze the movement second by second. Some of us had underdeveloped throwing movements, underdeveloped hopping or even kicking. It was an amazing class because it correlated motor development and motor learning in childhood to adulthood. The patterns associated with underdeveloped adult motor skills sort of told a story about the person being analyzed. The most important lesson I learned from this course was that we cannot forget the effect childhood has on our adult movement patterns. Too often we refer to our childhood as if it was a different life altogether, a different person perhaps. As if now we define ourselves as adults and our childhood had absolutely no effect on our well being today. As chiropractors we will see all kinds of issues with movement and it would be a disservice to our patients if we choose to neglect that persons movement history (i.e., motor development and motor learning) and experiences which led them into our office.
In my future clinic I will ask about athletic history to gain an understanding of the person's movement patterns and to formulate the individual's movement history, if you will. How many years has this person been walking around as if the world is on their back? Knowing their involvement with sports and activities will tell me a lot about how they view the world. Do they view the world as a threatening place or do they view life as a playing field? Can we use this information to help those who would benefit from lifestyle/perception changes? I think so. We will be portal of entry physicians.
I strongly believe we can harness the ability to calm the mind by using our adjustive skills with patients. Once we turn off the sympathetic overload and increase relaxation (i.e., decreasing the allostatic load), we can begin building trust with the patient and before we know it, they'll be kicking our butts on our daily runs or mountain bike rides. I think our role is more than just meeting the patient's immediate desire to get out of pain. We must define what health is and understand we have a very unique approach to helping people become the best they can be physically and mentally. If we stray from this role we will not leave as big of a stamp as we could have in this life.
Things sure change. I was about to hit the road and go into a different profession. I am glad I stayed!
No comments:
Post a Comment