Frequently Asked Questions
Frequent questions
What type of education and training do chiropractors have?
In the United States, doctors of chiropractic are trained as primary healthcare providers, with an emphasis on diagnosing and treating conditions related to the musculoskeletal system (muscles, ligaments, and joints of the spine and extremities) and the nerves that supply them they feed. The educational requirements for doctors of chiropractic are among the most rigorous of all healthcare professions.
The typical chiropractic college applicant has already acquired nearly four years of pre-medical undergraduate education, including courses in biology, inorganic and organic chemistry, physics, psychology, and related laboratory work. Once accepted into an accredited chiropractic college, the requirements become even more demanding: Four or five academic years of professional study is the standard. Doctors of chiropractic are educated in orthopedics, neurology, physiology, human anatomy, clinical diagnosis, including laboratory procedures, diagnostic imaging, exercise, nutritional rehabilitation and more.
Because chiropractic care includes highly skilled manipulation/adjustment techniques, a significant portion of time is spent training in clinical technique to master these important manipulative procedures.
In total, the chiropractic college curriculum includes a minimum of 4,200 hours of classroom, laboratory and clinical experience. The course of study is approved by an accrediting agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
What conditions do chiropractors treat?
The main condition that chiropractors treat is vertebral subluxation complex (VSC), or subluxation. A subluxation is defined as a misalignment of the spine or extremity that causes abnormal functioning of the joint and resulting nerve dysfunction. Therefore, whenever a subluxation is present, there will be associated signs and symptoms. Common signs and symptoms of a subluxated joint include swelling, warmth, impaired function, redness, and pain. Secondary conditions can result from a subluxation.
Secondary conditions:
Acid reflux
Allergies
Arthritis
Autism
Bell's palsy
Bone spurs
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Cerebral palsy
Chronic neck pain
Crohn's disease
Degenerative joint disease
Bulges and herniated discs
Dizziness
Fibromyalgia
Forward head posture
Heachache
Immune function
Irritable bowel syndrome
Knee pain
Back pain
Back pain
Migraine
Numbness and tingling (hands and feet)
Neck pain
Neurological dysfunctions
Pain related to pregnancy
Radiculopathy
Repetitive stress
Scoliosis
Sciatica
Seizure disorders
Shoulder and arm pain
Sports injuries
Spinal alignment/cervical curve
Spinal pain, stress
Temporomandibular joint
Stiff neck
Trigeminal neuralgia
Dizziness and balance
Whiplash
Is chiropractic safe?
Chiropractic is widely recognized as one of the safest non-invasive, drug-free therapies available for the treatment of neuromusculoskeletal disorders. Although chiropractic has an excellent safety record, no healthcare treatment is completely free of potential adverse effects. One way to judge the safety of a healthcare profession is how much they pay for malpractice insurance. Chiropractor malpractice insurance is one of the lowest of all healthcare disciplines.
How many chiropractor sessions are necessary for a complete recovery?
The number of sessions you need to undergo from a chiropractor will depend on a series of factors and in particular:
– Type of physical problem and its chronicity
– Patient's health status
– Age of the patient
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The phases of therapy
First phase
The intensive phase aims primarily to alleviate the patient's symptoms and to give the body the opportunity to restore its ability to heal itself. In this phase the visits are close together and are mostly passive.
Second phase
The stabilization phase begins when, once the symptoms have passed, the body begins to recover, regenerating the damaged tissues and maintaining the progress achieved with the intensive phase. During this phase the patient plays a more active role as they will be educated to understand health in broader terms, such as nutrition, exercise, sleep and stress management. This phase is very important since the patient, no longer feeling pain, will believe he is cured, but in reality he is still susceptible to relapses. In this regard, it is important to specify that pain is the last symptom to appear (when the body runs out of compensation strategies) and the first to disappear when the body is put in a position to heal itself. Visits during this phase will be carried out less frequently to give the patient the opportunity to regain control of their health.
Third phase
The third maintenance phase is perhaps at the same time the most important and the most neglected by patients.
The purpose of this phase of therapy is to monitor the health of the spine and nervous system periodically, in order to prevent the development of any problems with periodic visits to the Chiropractor. A useful analogy to help understand this phase is to compare the spine and the chiropractor to the teeth and the dentist.
Do I have to have pain to go to the chiropractor?
The presence of pain or other symptoms is not a requirement to undergo a check-up by a chiropractor, in fact it is strongly recommended to get checked even when you are well, as a prevention method.
It is important to know that spinal dysfunction always occurs before back pain or neck pain, making most "subluxations" silent. The body also has a natural way of altering mechanics to avoid pain when dysfunction is present; if the primary dysfunction is not corrected, these compensations will also become a problem.
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"Learn not to cure your illness, but how to preserve health" Leonardo Da Vinci
Is chiropractic care appropriate for children?
Yes, children can benefit tremendously from chiropractic care. Children are physically active and experience many types of falls and blows due to normal life activities and participation in sports. Injuries of this type can cause many symptoms, including back and neck pain, stiffness, soreness, or discomfort. Chiropractic adjustments are safe and gentle and are always tailored to the patient.
Difference between chiropractor and osteopath?
Both chiropractic and osteopathy are health disciplines born in the late 1800s in the United States. The two disciplines present more than one similarity: however chiropractic and osteopathy are distinguished by the respective objectives pursued: the chiropractor's objective is in fact to remove interference from the nervous system, while on the contrary the osteopath's objectives are attributable to focused attention mainly on the circulatory system.
From the point of view of academic and professional training, the chiropractor will follow a master's degree course abroad, equal to that of Medicine; the chiropractors who operate in our country are registered with the Italian Chiropractors Association - AIC and follow constant mandatory refresher courses.
To date, there are no chiropractic universities in Italy (unlike many foreign countries).