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Therapies
CERVICAL TRACTION
Cervical traction is the process of using force to straighten the spine. More common devices are similar to neck braces and weights that lift the skull. Cervical traction is used to treat damages to the spine from misalignment or pressure.
Cervical traction uses upward force on the spinal column, usually applied to the skull, while the rest of the body stays in place. This pulling motion aligns the spine and minimizes adverse effects on the spinal column.
Causes
Spinal injuries can be caused by sports or accidents, internal injuries such as lesions, or improper healing of the affected area.
Treatment
Cervical traction has a variety of uses. It can alleviate pain from pinched nerve roots, moving joints and damaged spinal disks. The most widely used treatment is for aligning the spinal column.
Therapy
Cervical traction can be used in conjunction with medication and can be a beneficial home therapy solution to spinal injuries. The Doctors of Chiropractic at DeCrescenzo Chiropractic can provide you with a physical therapy strategy.
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CRYOTHERAPY
What is Cryotherapy?
Cryotherapy is the application of ice, cold towels, ice massage or compresses with the intent of reducing temperatures of tissues directly on or below the skin’s surface.
How does it work?
Surface cooling and constricts blood vessels, numbs painful areas, and helps relax muscle spasms. Cold temperatures help reduce some painful symptoms and help provide some temporary relief.
What does Cryotherapy feels like?
Ice is most often used to manage acute injuries or recent eruptions of chronic conditions. Cooling affected tissues is effective in reducing and preventing post-traumatic swelling. Local cooling should be applied several times a day during the initial stages of an injury.
Why is Cryotherapy used?
Cryotherapy is inexpensive, readily available and an easy way to reduce local swelling of the inflamed tissues.
Patient benefits
- Helps reduce swelling and inflammation
- Numbs affected area to reduce pain
- Reduces muscle spasms
- Inexpensive and can be self-applied
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ELECTRO-MUSCLE STIMULATION
What is Electro-Muscle Stimulation?
Electro-Muscle Stimulation is a special form of electrical current that is administered at the site of a soft tissue injury, especially muscles, for the blocking of pain.
How does it work?
Small amounts of electrical current are induced into affected soft tissues to decrease spasticity and reduce swelling. This widely used technique safely strengthens muscles and helps reduce painful symptoms.
What does Electro-Muscle Stimulation feel like?
Patients generally feel a slight tingling sensation at first. Since, your body may become accustomed to the initial setting; the intensity may be raised during the course of your 10-20 minute treatment, for maximum healing effect.
Why is Electro-Muscle Stimulation used?
Electro-Muscle Stimulation has been used as an effective form of pain relief. It is recommended in cases in which pain is accompanied by swelling, inflammation and muscle spasticity.
Patient Benefits
- Reduces pain sensation
- Helps decrease swelling
- Promotes general muscle tone
- Speeds the healing process
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EXERCISE THERAPY
What is Exercise Therapy?
Exercise therapy is a set of repetitive stretching or strengthening maneuvers that are designed to develop weakened or injured muscles that support the spine. Specific exercises help rehabilitate and stabilize the spine.
How Does Exercise Therapy Work?
Individual bones from the spine are held in place by muscles and ligaments. Proper position and motion of these bones are crucial for the proper nervous system functions, correct posture, and good health. Repeated maneuvers and exercise help condition and re-pattern these connective tissues.
Why is Exercise Therapy necessary?
By the time many patients seek professional help, the fibrotic scar tissue has changed the strength and elasticity or supporting muscles. Careful exercises and designed stretches help better restore tone to these damaged tissues.
What can I expect from Exercise Therapy?
Results take time. Exercise therapy is effective at decreasing pain and improving function in adults with chronic low back pain. Exercise Therapy is an effective and inexpensive way to speed your recovery and stabilize your spine and prevent a relapse.
Patient Benefits
- Increases range of motion
- Retrains damaged muscles
- Strengthens rehabilitation
- Helps adjustment hold
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HYDROTHERAPY
Hydrotherapy is used at DeCrescenzo Chiropractic to treat many painful conditions. Superficial Heat Therapy is used to relax the muscles, increase circulation, and can provide relief to patients with chronic pain.
In contrast to deep heating modalities, superficial heating modalities usually do not heat deep tissues, including muscles, because the subcutaneous layer of fat beneath the skin surface acts as a thermal insulator and inhibits heat transfer. Additionally, increased blood flow from superficial heating causes a cooling reaction as it removes the heat that is applied externally.
When May Heat Therapy Be Used?
Heat therapy is mostly used to treat problems that cause the patient pain. It is particularly useful in the treatment of back pain, period pain, neck pain, arthritis, fibromyalgia, and pain associated with damaged nerves.
How Does Heat Therapy Work?
The chiropractors at DeCrescenzo Chiropractic utilize hot packs, warm moist towels and healing pads to help raise the temperature of soft tissues directly below the surface of the skin. Heat therapy increases the temperature of the skin and underlying tissues. It can open up the capillaries and increase blood flow. When the blood flow is increased, more oxygen gets to the muscles and other organs. It may also loosen tissues which helps problems related to stiffness. The heat also stimulates the body's temperature receptors (or thermoreceptors), which help stop it feeling pain.
Hydrotherapy is a good way to increase flexibility and range of motion and also promote increased circulation to speed the healing process.
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INFRARED LASER THERAPY & PAIN RELIEF
ERCHONIA THERAPEUTIC LASER
Think of it as a calculator that subtracts pain
Laser Focus
When learning about laser, there are some basic concepts that should be understood. A laser is basically a focused beam of light that emits photon energy. When the light is focused properly, all the photons are traveling in the same wavelength; this is also known as coherent light. When light is not focused, it scatters in all directions and becomes diffused. This is called non-coherent light.
Beams of Light
We use lasers to listen to our favorite music CDs, to measure distances, temperature, and speed. Even though Einstein was the first to talk about the idea of beams of light, our bodies have been using that same kind of energy to communicate since man was created; as documented in James L. Oschman’s book Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis, cells communicate to one another through coherent light.
Low-Level Lasers
Low-level lasers are different than more than publicized heat lasers that are used in many surgical procedures to cut, and cauterize tissue. Low-level lasers do not have a thermal effect and are used to stimulate, rather than destroy tissue. These types of lasers have been in use for over 25 years and there has yet to be one recorded side-effect. Low-level laser studies have been proven to be effective in many cases, but it was the Erchonia laser that made history by becoming the first low-level laser in the world to gain FDA market clearance for the treatment of chronic neck and shoulder pain. This was proven through two double-blind studies to prove efficacy of the Erchonia laser on chronic pain.
How Does It Work?
Erchonia lasers emit visible coherent light that is applied to the affected area. Bundles of light energy pass through the dermal layers, and are received within the cell membrane by specific energy photo acceptors. The increase in intra-cellular energy results in altered cell membrane permeability, and physiological changes occur through an enzyme cascade to affect several biological processes. Within the injured musculoskeletal tissue, low-level laser light initiates increased microcirculation, and enhanced tissue regeneration. The overall effects are decreased pain and inflammation, and increased range of motion.
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INTERSEGMENTAL TRACTION
What is Intersegmental Traction?
It is a way of inducing passive motion into the spine for the purpose of stretching spinal joints, increasing mobility.
How does Intersegmental Traction work?
The patient lies face up on a bench table which has roller-type cams beneath its surface. These rollers can slowly travel the length of the spine, stretching spinal joints. Most patients find this form of treatments to be relaxing and very helpful. The gentle rolling action is restful and exercises the spine without effort.
What does Intersegmental Traction feel like?
Most patients find this form of treatment to be relaxing and very helpful. The gentle rolling action is restful, exercising the spine without effort.
Why is Intersegmental Traction used?
Since discs have a poor blood supply, they get nutrients from the circulation of fluids surrounding spinal joints. Fixations prevent this natural circulation and can cause disc thinning and degeneration. Intersegmental traction helps increase and restores necessary elasticity and motion to the spine.
When Intersegmental traction is used in conjunction with the chiropractic adjustment, it loosens locked-up joints and giving passive motion exercise and therapy to the disc between the vertebrae. This helps to return flexibility, elasticity, and preserves that all-important disc space which protects the opening for the spinal nerve.
Patient Benefits
- Comfortable and relaxing
- Increased mobility
- Improves circulation of spinal fluids
- Most patients enjoy the relaxing motion and the increased mobility gained from Intersegmental Traction.
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MECHANICAL TRACTION
Twenty-six to 71% of the adult population can recall experiencing an episode of neck pain or stiffness in their lifetime. Neck pain is more common in females than in males, with rates reported as high as 77.8%. Neck pain has a costly impact on society because of visits to healthcare providers, sick leave, and loss of productivity. There are a number of treatments available for neck pain, one of which is mechanical traction.
Mechanical traction are tables that the patient lies down on, either on their back or face down, depending on which therapy the doctor decides would be most beneficial for their condition. There are a few different types of traction tables.
Mechanical traction 'stretches' the neck. With the patient lying on their back, a head halter is placed under the back of the head and possibly the jaw and attached to a machine. The machine is set for a certain time period and specific weight for the pulling action to occur. The traction can remain on steadily for the specified time (referred to as continuous or static) or intermittently (on/off cycle) during the treatment session. Experts think that traction expands the space between the vertebrae, increases the movement of the joints and stretches the muscles and ligaments around the vertebrae. Side effects are generally few, but can include headache, nausea, fainting and injury to tissue.
For patients suffering from low back pain, there is Lumbar Traction, which is designed to specifically target the lumbar curve, restoring your lumbar spine to its appropriate degree of curvature. Each of these machines has rollers that are brought up under your back, helping to reduce tension, break up scar tissue, hydrate discs, and bring new blood and fluids to the area, helping your body to heal faster. We also provide full spine traction that is a table without specific attachments for either cervical or lumbar treatments, and is just overall traction for the entire spine.
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MYOFASCIAL RELEASE
What is Myofascial Release?
Myofascial Release is a safe and very effective hands-on technique that involves applying gentle sustained pressure into the Myofascial connective tissue restrictions to eliminate pain and restore motion. This essential “time element” has to do with the viscous flow and the piezoelectric phenomenon: a low load (gentle pressure) applied slowly will allow a viscoelastic medium (fascia) to elongate.
Trauma, inflammatory responses, and/or surgical procedures create Myofascial restrictions that can produce tensile pressures of approximately 2,000 pounds per square inch on pain sensitive structures that do not show up in many of the standard tests (x-rays, myelograms, CAT scans, electromyography, etc.)
Myofascial release is a type of soft tissue massage which incorporates stretching and massage of the connective tissues, or fascia. Myofascial release began to be a popular form of massage therapy in the late 1990s, when patients realized the potential for pain management and increased flexibility that myofascial release offered. Like other forms of massage therapy, there are a number of schools which offer certification in myofascial release. Massage students are expected to log a set number of classroom, textbook, and practice hours before they are certified.
Myofascial release usually begins with a gentle massage which is designed to warm and loosen muscles. As the therapist works, he or she identifies areas of tension which require further attention, and will return to those areas to stretch and work the fascia. Sometimes myofascial release can be quite intense, especially in the case of muscles which are holding a great deal of tension and stress. After the session, some clients experience slight stiffness and soreness, which will usually vanish over the next few days, leaving behind a sense of well-being.
Myofascial release operates on the principle that many people hold stress in their muscles, which causes the muscles to seize or lock. This is exacerbated by muscle injury and scarring. Myofascial release aims to access these areas of blockage and tension to release them, thereby freeing up the muscle and allowing it to move more easily and effectively.
What are the benefits?
- Relaxation and Pain Relief
- Reduces muscle spasms
- Avoid scar tissue formation
- Improve muscle tone
- Promote circulation
- Increase range of motion
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MUSCLE TRIGGER POINT THERAPY
Trigger Point Therapy is one of the many techniques used by the chiropractors at DeCrescenzo Chiropractic to deal with muscle pain of myofascial pain.
A trigger point is not an area of scar tissue from an injury. It is an area of increased sensitivity in the muscle. A trigger point is a hyperirritable spot that is painful; it is called a trigger point because it "triggers" a painful response.
But a trigger point is more than a tender nodule. It affects not only the muscle where the trigger point is located, but also causes "referred pain" in tissues supplied by nerves.
Trigger points are located in a taut band of muscles fibers. The trigger point is the most tender point in the band. The therapist at DeCrescenzo Chiropractic will locate and deactivate them using finger pressure. One technique is to pick up the muscle fibers in a pincer grip.
What You Should Know About Trigger Point Therapy
It is used to treat painful trigger points that cause referred pain.
It took a while to get the muscle in that condition, and it will likely take more than one massage to get rid of it.
These points are often areas of chronic "holding" and you need to learn how to move in different ways to keep them from recurring.
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ULTRASOUND
What is Ultrasound?
Ultrasound is a therapeutic treatment using high-frequency sound waves administered in the region of soft tissue injuries.
How does it work?
Sound vibrations, as fast as a million times per seconds, penetrate tissues deep in the body, creating a heat response. These vibrations and heat help break down and disperse unhealthy calcium and other hard tissue accumulations.
What does Ultrasound feel like?
The gel used to conduct the sound waves is at room temperature and may momentarily feel cool to the skin when it is initially applied. Most patients feel nothing, or a pleasant and relaxing sensation below the surface of the skin.
Why is Ultrasound used?
Ultrasound treatment can usually be administered directly to the area of complaint, penetrating deep into the body. The rise in temperature increases blood flow, relaxes muscle spasms, massages damaged tissues and speeds the healing process.
Patients Benefits
- Highly effective in treating calcium deposition
- Stimulates healing without irritation
- Speeds metabolism and improves blood flow
- Reduces nerve root irritation
- Enhances the body’s natural healing
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