Purposes of Pain
Many would feel that it would be a great thing not to feel physical pain. Pain though, is a way ones body tells it that something is wrong. An individual touching a hot stove would feel instant pain, forcing them to pull their hand away before causing too much damage. Pain tells yo…
Our understanding of pain has transformed largely because we can now look into the brain and observe what is going on there when the body appears to hurt. Neuroscience (including advanced imaging where we can see nerve and brain activity in real time) has opened a window where none existed before. …
Explanations of joint pathology, the reasons why it may have developed and what can be done about it can become complex and difficult to understand. In particular information relating to the structure and function of biological systems is continually mounting. Much of the time we tell patients tha…
When the brain's primary "learning center" is damaged, complex new neural circuits arise to compensate for the lost function, say life scientists from UCLA and Australia who have pinpointed the regions of the brain involved in creating those alternate pathways -- often far from the damaged site.
Th…
There is a small area in the brain specifically dedicated to determining what other people are thinking. More than empathy and more than pattern recognition, the right temporoparietal junction is a tiny area responsible for processing a lot cues really fast.
Mind reading (and mind control) have l…
Barrett L. Dorko, P.T.
Origin: The source from which anything arises; the first stage of existence.
Cause: A thing that exists in such a way that some specific thing happens as a result.
I’ll often ask patients who’ve been to other therapists before landing on my treatment table what their …
The spread of technological instruments has simplified our lives, allowing us to easily accomplish many complex actions; thus, people are used to interacting with technological instruments and controlling them with simple movements. For instance, in our daily lives, we frequently press a button to s…
Like all health professionals we get stuck in our opinions as to the cause of dysfunction and what best approach to take when treating. Most experienced practitioners understand that things change over time and we learn that not all our patients appear to respond equally to the same stimulus or tre…
The shape of a person's spinal column may predict their risk for disability in old age, and thus their need for home assistance, new research has found.
A team of researchers in Japan discovered that the trunk angle of inclination -- or "the angle between the true vertical and a straight line from…
I have for some time been collecting the phrases that patients use to complain about us doctors, and it is amazing how often you hear, "(S)he never touched me!" or, ". . . never laid a hand on me!" or "never looked at me" or "never listened" or "was too busy looking at the computer screen."
I…
Health-conscious people are haunted by the idea that they “should” correct their posture, and many fight a chronic, uncertain and tedious battle against crookedness. But is it necessary? Can aches and pains be traced to “poor posture” in the first place? Even if they can, is it actually pos…
British researchers recently reported that a skeleton found toward the end of 2012 with a cleaved skull and a curved spine entombed under a car park was that of Richard III solving a 500-year-old mystery about the final resting place of the last English king to die in battle. Richard, depicted by Wi…
How your Smart phone benefits your Chiropractic treatment.
The media including newspapers, current affair shows and the news, employ smart phones as a tool for the viewer to send in updates of incidents, accidents, traffic reports and weather (the list goes on and on). However, did you stop and th…
One of the most common questions that a chiropractor is likely to be asked is, "What's that cracking sound?" Typically, you'd have no trouble explaining the mechanism of cavitation and its relevance to an adjustment. Often this line of questioning is followed by a secondary probe such as, "But doesn…
The term spring cleaning refers to the yearly act of cleaning a house from top to bottom which takes place in the first warm days of the year typically in the spring time. It has been suggested that the origins of spring cleaning go back to the Persian new year, which falls on the first day of sprin…
Scoliosis is a condition that chiropractors are often called upon to identify and then manage. While there is significant awareness of scoliosis in the general population, it is not accompanied by much understanding of the underlying mechanisms that bring about spinal curvature. As such, there has…
Sensorimotor is defined as our ability to feel and move. With infants, Piaget, the renowned researcher, categorized the first 2 years of an infant’s life as the sensorimotor stage. "During this period, infants are busy discovering relationships between their bodies and the environment. Researchers h…
Have you ever gotten in trouble for asking questions? Or felt stupid for challenging a certain theory because you didn’t think it was right? If you have you should know that it is actually in our human nature to question what we are taught. If we didn’t, we would never discover anything new. In fact…
Here are some extracts from a recent article (Doctor Seeks a Better Alternative) in the Sydney Morning Herald, which we found interesting and thought you might enjoy it also.
To those critics who disparage her espousal of herbal medicine, Kerryn Phelps, the one-time leader of mainstream medicine, now…
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