Kansas City Chiropractic Therapist
Imagine relaxing on a cushioned, leather table while chiropractic therapists perform therapy on your lower back area to relax your muscles and reduce inflammation.
In Kansas City, our chiropractic therapists call this physiotherapy. Used in conjunction with chiropractic adjustments, physiotherapy controls pain and swelling.
For patients with acute pain, physiotherapy modalities can be used before a chiropractic adjustment to calm down inflamed joints, but only after a chiropra
ctic exam. Physiotherapy can change the way you feel and may interfere with the accuracy of the exam. The exam gives the chiropractor a chance to evaluate the situation – noting which muscles are agitated and which joints are swollen. For this reason, physiotherapy is most-often performed after the adjustment.
Not only does physiotherapy feel great, but it helps to speed the healing of inflamed soft tissues and provides pain relief.
Electric Muscle Stimulation (EMS)
A chiropractic therapist uses EMS to provide patients with pain relief and quicken the healing process.
During Electric Muscle Stimulation (EMS) a chiropractic therapist stimulates muscle contraction through electrical impulses. The electrical impulse causes a muscle or a group of muscles to contract.
A chiropractic therapist places electrodes on the skin in a specific location to recruit specific muscle fibers.
When the muscles contract, the electrical impulse drives fluid from a swollen joint back into the bloodstream. This controls pain, reduces inflammation and promotes blood supply to the area – promoting healing.
What is an EMS Session Like?
Our Kansas City chiropractic therapists use EMS in conjunction with ice to decrease the swelling two-fold: we simultaneously drive out the fluid with the electrical impulses (EMS) and decrease inflammation by constricting the blood vessels with ice.
The therapists adjust the controls of the electric current so that you feel a prickly sensation in your muscles that is noticeable, but not too intense.
An EMS treatment lasts about 12 minutes.
Microcurrent Therapy
Microcurrent therapy uses low electrical currents to treat muscle and nerve pain and inflammation.
Each tissue in your body has its own signature electrical frequency, which can easily be disrupted by disease. Microcurrent therapy restores normal frequencies within your cells. The result is decreased pain, inflammation and increased function.
At the cellular level, microcurrent therapy increases protein synthesis, which is necessary for tissue repair. The increase in blood flow and decrease in inflammation translates into less pain and muscle spasms and an increased ability to move.
What a Microcurrent Treatment Session Like?
During microcurrent therapy, you sit comfortably while a chiropractic therapist places electrodes at strategic places to direct the currents to the targeted tissues. Microcurrent, unlike EMS, doesn’t stimulate the sensory nerves, so you feel no shock-like sensations.
Chiropractic therapists use therapeutic ultrasound to increase blood flow and decrease swelling.
Therapeutic Ultrasound
Sorry, we won’t be showing you a picture of your baby.
Unlike diagnostic ultrasound (which allows you to see your baby before it’s born) therapeutic ultrasound uses sound waves that pass through the skin causing inflamed muscles to vibrate. The vibration produces heat in your tissues, but you likely won’t feel at thing.
The heat produced by ultrasound causes your tissues to relax, increases blood flow, and can help to break down any scar tissue that has formed because of injury – giving your body a chance to heal properly.
What is a Therapeutic Ultrasound Session Like?
Ultrasound is applied using a round-headed wand or probe that your chiropractic therapist puts directly on your skin using ultrasound gel.
Intersegmental Traction
Intersegmental Traction therapy restores motion to your spine. This increases your ability to bend and move and stretches spinal joints. Without movement, your discs (the cushions between each of your vertebra), which already have poor blood supply, can begin to degenerate.
The motion applied to the discs through intersegmental traction removes waste from the joint. This decreases the likelihood of bone spur formation (degenerative arthritis) and restores proper motion.
What is Intersegmental Traction Therapy Like?
During Intersegmental Traction therapy, you lay on a cushioned table. Inside of the table are three rollers that rotate and move from head to toe and gently roll up and down your spine.
Our patients love laying on the table and find it both relaxing and therapeutic.
Physiotherapy, when done in conjunction with chiropractic therapy, can speed up the healing process and help patients return to full health more quickly.
Learn more about the symptoms we treat or to schedule an appointment online. Open 7 days a week, our Kansas City chiropractors offer chiropractic treatment and physiotherapy when our patients need it most.