Dr. Ron Ayello’s Thoughts on Chiropractic Care
Q. What do you think makes Chiropractic different from other methods of care?
Chiropractic has a unique outlook on how to treat the body. It combines anatomy, physiology, and neurology together. It changes the way you look at not only physical rehabilitation, but how you see “injury” and “dysfunction” on a fundamental level. There are a multitude of different ways one can “treat” the body, with even more techniques on how to apply them. Chiropractic care is generally very “passive care” focused, where the chiropractor is moving or issueing treatment to the patient. Although Chiropractic is by no means limited to just “passive care” methods of treatment, a large quantity of our skill set as practitioners is very hands on. For this reason, treatment can be very personal and personalized for each individual patient. Naturally, this makes the “doctor-patient trust” relationship imperative.
Q. What makes you different from other Chiropractors?
I like to think what makes me different is my emphasis on function being the core of treatment. The goal of any type of physical rehabilitation should be restoring “function” to the region or area of complaint. A simple demonstration of this could be applied to a simple ankle sprain. When someone sprains their ankle, in addition to the pain that will be present, an individual will have difficulty walking. As time goes on, the individual will start to develope incorrect movement patterns of the lower extremity if not treated effectively. Both ankle range of motion and strength will decrease, and although the pain may go away with time, persistant re-injury is likely to happen. In addition to reinjury, the chance of new injuries will increase as when one part of the body isn’t functioning as it should, somewhere else has to accomadate for the dysfunctional region. This concept is applicable throughout the entire body; neck, low back, extremities, etc. For this reason, treating function will lead to more successful treatment plans.
Q. Does someone need to be in pain first, before they start Chiropractic Treatment?
Absolutely not. Just because someone doesn’t have pain or discomfort, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t see a Chiropractor. Pain is often the result of a “dysfunctional” region over an extended period of time. A simple illistration of this concept would be to analyze a baseball pitcher. This individual will throw a multitude of pitches during a game, and the pitching motion strains specific musculature far more than others. As time goes on, the shoulder will adapt to the stress and strain placed on it. Certain muscles will develope, others will weaken, and the potential range of motion of the shoulder will change. Eventually, more pitching will cause the player to experience pain due to a number of reasons, including the imbalance of musculature of the shoulder. Should this cycle continue, injury is a common outcome. This process I just explained shows pain as one of the last things to arise before injury, not the first. For this reason, addressing range of motion and minimizing the “dysfunction” of a region should be done prior to pain being present. Now in this example I used an athlete, but this concept isn’t specific to them. In all patient care, improving function is paramount in physical rehabilitation, and given that Chiropractic falls under that category, it is no different in that regard.