Problem-solving care versus wellness care
I’d like to talk about problem-solving care versus wellness care. Most of you have initially sought chiropractic in order to deal with a particular symptom…..usually musculo-skeletal in nature. What happens next varies widely from person to person. Some patients stay singularly focused on the initial complaint and discontinue care when the problem is resolved. Others return for care when the problem re-occurs or when new problems arise. Some adopt a loose schedule of maintenance visits to fill in the gaps around any symptom-based care they may need. And others incorporate a wellness approach to care with weekly adjustments, regardless of feeling “bad” or “good”. With all these different approaches to care its important to clarify the difference between a wellness adjustment and a symptom-based adjustment. Actually, there isn’t one! A chiropractic adjustment has a singular goal every time it is performed, which is to detect and correct spinal misalignments (subluxations) which are interfering with the nervous system’s ability to properly express health in the body. This is the same on the first adjustment as it is on the 5,000th. Therefore, every adjustment is both problem-solving and wellness-promoting at the same time. There are always “problems” which are addressed during spinal care, even though most of them are asymptomatic at the time and there are also always potential “problems” which never develop. Most of you know that I am a strong advocate for wellness care. I frequently use the examples of changing the oil in your car or having your teeth regularly checked to support the concept of wellness or preventative spinal care; waiting for poor spinal health to result in dis-ease in the body is like waiting for a cavity to abscess before going to the dentist. So the real distinction between symptom care and wellness care resides in the mind-set of the patient. I hope to encourage more of you to consider the preventative aspect of chiropractic; it is an undeniable fact in my practice that long-term wellness patients tend to have fewer symptom-based problems and are more pro-active about their health overall.
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