Improving Stability, One Roll at a Time

I love sharing success stories because it makes people recognize the importance that chiropractic care can play in their daily lives.  Most of the success stories that I post on social media or share with others are in relation to pain.  Pain is the reason that most people seek complimentary alternative medicine (such as chiropractic care), but it's not my primary goal in treating my patients.  My primary goal is to improve movement.  When the body moves better, it feels better.  Improving function leads to decreasing pain.  But this success story isn't about pain at all; it's about a tiny little movement.I got this message from a patient's mother yesterday: "You are wonderful and I apologized to my son for underestimating him! He did turn from his back to his side today! Twice! ... Thank you! I am so happy we found you!"  It's hard not to smile when I get reports like this.  Her 5 month old son has some developmental delays, and we discussed the importance of free movement and allowing him to spend time on his back so that he could begin the process of figuring out how to engage his abdomen for optimal support in rolling over.  When I told her this, she said she didn't think he could do that on his own, but I assured her that letting him do it on his own was the best way to get him to learn how to do it.  As I discussed in a previous post, it's important to allow our children the opportunity to develop movements on their own rather than through our assistance.It seems like such a simple movement: going from back to side.  But many of my patients get exercises involving just that: engaging the abdomen and shoulder stabilizers in order to go from back to side or side to sitting effectively.  The reason so many of my patients are given these exercises is because they are lacking the capability to stabilize properly.  If given the opportunity to learn how to do so in infancy, proper activation of stabilizing muscles results in better movement and less pain or injury in the future.  Not only did this patient's mother recognize this, she also respected her son enough to allow him to begin earning his movements.  Thankfully, the patient is now on his way to improved stability and better movements through Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization treatments and chiropractic care!