Common Postural Distortions
When I first meet with a patient and while taken a detailed history I carefully look for how the patient is carrying themselves. I am watching to see if they tend to lean to one direction or rotate their head as they look at me. I look to see if there is excessive slouching or humping of the upper back, if they are sitting on their wallets, or even if one shoulder appears higher than the other. All of these are important signs that give little clues into the forces that have been applied on the spine over a long period of time. As the exam continues we analyze posture further by using a defined visual evaluation or even by taking a posture picture that we can map on a grid for specific measurements of how your posture effects our spine. Posture analysis along with X-ray is the ultimate tool for a chiropractor to properly analyze the spine this is because it gives us a long detailed picture of how the spine is truly doing. While most patients visit the chiropractor soon after they have discovered a problem, for example, neck pain in the vast majority of cases changes have been taken place for a long time to lead up to that pain. Pain, in fact, is many times the last symptom to show up. Dysfunction and postural changes precede and can predict future problem way before pain appears. So as a chiropractor when we analyze posture we are not only analyzing certain risk factors that lead to spinal pain and dysfunction for the current complaint but how as a whole the spine is moving and aging and how it can effect your future spinal health. As a chiropractor I analyze posture to get a long term story on the health of a spine and by doing this I can best treat the symptoms quickly and obtain results for a much longer period of time because of that. Make sure the chiropractor you choose not only analyzes but works to correct postural changes.
