Chiropractic therapy helps put a body in line

Chiropractic therapy helps put a body in line

David Kennedy , Contributor, Jakarta
d_kenn@yahoo.com

A man walks into a chiropractic clinic in South Jakarta in
considerable pain. His head is leaning to one side, as if sitting
over his left shoulder. The man's left arm has no strength and a
hand injury on the same side has not been healing.

The chiropractor takes one look at him and thinks "golf".

It's a common complaint and the symptoms are found in varying
degrees, though they are usually less dramatic than those of the
golfer mentioned here.

Imbalances of the spine and nervous system, or "subluxations",
as they are called by chiropractors, can be caused by bad
posture, injuries, the way we practice sports, or even emotional
stress and chemicals.

Many athletes and superstars, such as Tiger Woods, Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Madonna, aware that these imbalances can
affect their performance, have been receiving chiropractic
treatment for years. Even racehorses get the therapy to increase
their speed.

People living in Jakarta have only recently been able to avail
of this complementary therapy with the opening of three clinics
in the last year in Central and South Jakarta.

Chiropractors perform regular adjustments to their patients'
spines, applying gentle yet rapid and precise pressure to move
the back and neck toward an optimal position over a period of
weeks, months or even years. This often produces noisy crunches
which sound nasty but are in fact painless.

Chiropractic was developed in 1895 by D.D Palmer, a healer in
Iowa, the United States, who studied anatomy and science and
discovered almost by accident that by repositioning displaced
bones in the spine he could positively affect peoples' health.

"Everything feeds on the nervous system and if you've any kind
of misalignment or malfunction, you're not going to operate at
one hundred percent," says Dr. Tony Dawson of Chiropractic
Indonesia, which has clinics in Jakarta and Bali.

Chiropractors do not directly treat symptoms nor do they claim
to cure diseases. They use the analogy of losing your car keys --
you usually retrace your steps to find them. Chiropractors aim to
tackle the source of ailments most of which, they claim, are due
to irritations and blockages of the nervous system.

"Just small increments of imbalance can create disease (lack
of ease) and malfunction over time that lead to problems later
on. The extreme case is when a person loses complete sensitivity
in their hand -- they could put it into something that is
completely freezing and they wouldn't know that they'd damaged
it," Dawson said.

"We adjust the body in a specific direction to relieve
dysfunction and allow the nervous system to regain normal
function."

At Chiropractic Indonesia's newest clinic at the Jakarta Stock
Exchange building, Dr. Sean Kirke has treated over 300 patients
since arriving from Australia in January this year.

Although it varies according to age and other factors, he
claims that most back pain can be significantly reduced within a
few weeks or months; he insists, however, that chiropractic helps
with a lot more than backache.

"It can help with just about anything. We don't treat diseases
or signs and symptoms -- by correcting the spine and nervous
system we allow the body to be more whole and it will tend to
heal itself of a lot of complaints," he said, adding that most
ailments are due to a "lack of health or of complete function in
your body".

Chiropractic, he said, is not a miracle cure but rather an
aspect of health which should be part of a holistic approach
encompassing diet, exercise, posture and mental attitude; it aims
to strengthen the person's ability to adapt to their environment
and fight off infection.

"You don't have headaches because you haven't taken enough
aspirin, you don't even get sick because a bacteria or bug has
infected you. Louis Pasteur, the inventor of germ theory and
penicillin said on his death bed that it's not the germ that's
the problem, it's the host."

Chiropractic differs from many other complementary health
therapies due to its science base; current research indicates
that degeneration of the spine from "subluxations" can reduce
nerve transmission considerably. This can result in damage to
parts of the body, including to organs which are cut off from the
nervous system.

"You don't lose kidney function overnight. It takes ages but
it's only recognizable medically when it has actually failed and
that's too late," said Dawson, who is quick to add that this does
not mean that chiropractors can take the place of medical
doctors.

"Doctors recognize that this is an area they don't look at and
that can help their patients."

He added that when a medical condition has got to the stage of
severe damage only doctors and surgeons can help.

"We need medical doctors but they are so busy treating sick
people that they don't have any time to think about how to keep
well people well."

Chiropractors turn the conventional approach to healthcare on
its head, focusing on wellness instead of sickness.

"You don't wait until your car breaks down to get it serviced
but you tend to wait until you're sick to see the doctor," says
Dawson.

Some doctors in Indonesia refer patients for chiropractic and
consider it as part of the healthcare community.

"I often refer patients and they usually get very good results
and don't need antiinflammatory drugs or painkillers. Also it can
be useful for other conditions apart from back and neck pains. I
am for alternative medicine if it corrects my patients' disease."

As in other countries, however, many within the medical
profession here reluctant to acknowledge a therapy it considers
to be lacking in scientific evidence.

"There are some people who claim to be chiropractors in
Jakarta, but in medical formality, until this moment Indonesia
does not acknowledge the practice of chiropractor," says Dr. Eka
Putra, Medical Director at the Metropolitan Medical Center in
South Jakarta.

Dr. Brilliantono, an orthopedic surgeon with a private
practice in Central Jakarta who works closely with chiropractors,
usually refers people with back pain, cervical or limb problems.

"Of one hundred of my patients, only about three are operated
on. The other 97 percent are treated by chiropractors, physical
therapists or with medicine," he said.

"It's good because it's not invasive. Though it looks simple,
the results are very good."