Posture Pro
What does posture say about a person? To some it may give insight on a person’s confidence. To someone like myself, a chiropractor, it helps me identify dysfunction within someone’s spine or body. When I started practicing chiropractic, I invested in a digital X-ray machine because I believed that was vital to showing patients what’s going on with their spine and structure. It also helps patients understand their own care plans better. Over the years the posture pictures I take of my patients have been far more impactful for patients identifying the source of their pain or problem. Patients see a picture of themselves standing up, and say things like “I thought I WAS standing up straight!” Or “my bra strap always falls off my shoulder, now I see why – my shoulders aren’t level!”
As a chiropractor I look at posture every single day, even when I’m not in my office. When I look at someone straight on I want to see that their head is level, their shoulders are balanced and their hips are even. When I look at someone from the side, I want to see that their ears are over their shoulders, their shoulders over hips, hips over knees and knees over ankles. Everything is in a nice alignment. When things deviate from that “normal” presentation, that’s when we start to look for dysfunction of the spine and structure. One of my favorite parts about being a chiropractor is finding misalignment that can be corrected, and linking it back to why that patient is in my office.
One of the most common findings when it comes to posture is a presentation of forward head carriage. “Text Neck” is the new term for this, as it is commonly found in our younger generations because of the over use of technology like phones and tablets. Forward head posture actually puts a lot of pressure on the spine and nervous system. The brain and nervous system control everything from the top of the spine, down… thus if the head shifts forward due to poor posture even one inch forward that can increase the pressure put on the spine by ten fold! Ouch!
During a new patient consultation, we do a thorough assessment that includes posture analysis with a program called PosturePro. This app allows us to analyze 2 view pictures of the patient so see how we can help and what needs attention. Once we start someone on their care plan (which typically consists of the chiropractic adjustment to align and relieve the nervous system as well as therapeutic rehabilitation exercises to target the muscular component of better alignment), we take progress posture pictures to measure the change from their initial posture assessment. Nearly every patient feels the postural changes and then can be validated by having the progress pictures actually show the changes they feel.
Here is some amazing feedback from a patient that gave me permission to use her testimonial of her experience during her report of findings on her posture pictures: “I practice yoga and feel pretty aware of my body and posture…I am definitely not standing as straight as I thought and I had no idea my hips were tilted forward! Dr. Jamie’s treatment plan and exercises make so much sense – I am excited to see my progress when we take the next set of Posture Pro photos!”
If you are interested in having a chiropractic consult, please call us today at Healthmax Chiropractic of Hudson. We want to help you with our one stop shop to health and wellness as well as getting you standing up with better, more confident posture!
