Techniques and Methods

Chiropractic Care

We are focused on helping you feel better and get back to the activities you love, fast! We develop customized short-term treatment plans that are tailored to your individual needs. From athletes looking to utilize chiropractic adjustments to improve performance to individuals dealing with chronic pain, discover how we can help!

What is Chiropractic Care?

“Chiropractic” is from Greek words meaning “done by hand”. Doctors of Chiropractic are concerned with how the body’s nerves, muscles, and joints function as a whole. They focus on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the body. They are specialists in using manipulations of joints to improve range of motion, flexibility, and to restore proper function. Traditional chiropractic care focuses on correcting misalignments in the spine through manipulations of the vertebral joints. More recently, chiropractors are not only addressing problems of the spine, but also joints of the body (i.e. hips, knees, feet, and shoulders etc.), which have an indirect effect on the spine.

Chiropractic care is recognized as a safe and effective form of manipulative therapy for musculoskeletal conditions. When supplemented with soft tissue techniques like myofascial release, Instrumented Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization, and exercise rehabilitation, it provides an effective means to reduce pain, restore optimal movement and function, and optimize overall health. Dr. Tracey is experienced in treating the causes of low back pain, neck pain, headaches, shoulder pin, wrist pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow and foot pain, as well as many more unusual complaints. It can also be extremely useful in treating pain from auto accidents.

What sets us apart?

Biomechanics

We focus on your body’s mechanics, ranges of motion, and alleviating/aggravating movement patterns to identify the underlying area(s) of dysfunction.

Patient Education

Rehabilitation exercises, stretches, plus lifestyle and postural recommendations are provided to help you maintain relief in between treatments.

Comprehensive Care

Our treatments are thorough and tailored to your needs. We do not adjust and send you on your way. Instead, we use a variety of modalities and techniques to leave you feeling better than when you came in.

Integrity

Our intention is to keep your pain from coming back. By treating the root of your condition, explaining the mechanisms, and giving you the tools to prevent it from reoccurring, less treatments are required, leaving you with more knowledge and longer lasting results.

Common Conditions Treated:

• Acute and chronic injuries
• Sports injuries
• Muscular pain and stiffness
• Neck pain
• Shoulder pain
• Back pain
• Elbow pain
• Sciatica
• Disc herniations
• Hip pain
• Knee pain
• Headaches and Migraines
• Carpel Tunnel Syndrome
• Foot and ankle pain

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Functional and Rehabilitative Taping

What is Kinesiology Tape?

Kinesiology taping (or kinesio taping) is the application of a thin, stretchy, cotton-based therapeutic tape that can benefit a wide variety of musculoskeletal and sports injuries plus inflammatory conditions. It is almost identical to human skin in both thickness and elasticity, which allows it to be worn without binding, constricting or restriction of your movement.

We see the benefits of Kinesio tape on our patients and athletes. It is easy to apply and very comfortable for someone to have on their body. We recommend it for many conditions and many situations. Here are the top benefits of using Kinesio tape in our office:

• Reduces pain – Kinesio tape is used for patients and athletes who just want to get out of pain. Applying Kinesio tape over the area where someone is having pain will actually reduce the pain signals to the brain.
• Improves biomechanics – Kinesio tape improves your biomechanics, which in turn is going to improve your sports performance and everyday activities. Because something is moving biomechanically better and more stable, you will have increased sports performance.
• Activates Muscles – Kinesio tape activates muscles. Often times patients come into the office with a non-traumatic injury such as knee pain or hip pain and for no reason. Most likely this is because the muscle is not activated, which means it’s not initiating motion so other muscles have to create that motion. Applying Kinesio tape in a certain place over a certain muscle will activate those muscles. Therefore, it’s going to reduce your potential to injury and increase sports performance.

Kinesio tape can also be used to stabilize muscles and joints that have been sprained or hurt. Unlike braces and sleeves that constrain and reduce blood flow, Kinesio tape can provide support and stability while increasing blood flow. Thus, the tape’s capabilities make it well suited to the repair of localized muscle groups.

The same science that is used to treat injuries can be applied to promote better circulation and lymph drainage for sports applications. By applying Kinesio tape to a specific muscle group, we are able to reduce muscle vibration, accelerate blood flow out of the muscles to encourage oxygenation and promote lymph drainage, which helps remove lactic acid. These functions provide the athlete with additional endurance and help promote recovery.

Injuries that Benefit from Kinesio tape:

• Cervical and lumbar disc injuries
• Postural disorders
• Rotator cuff injuries
• Shoulder laxity and separations
• Golfer’s and tennis elbow
• Wrist laxity and injuries
• Nerve entrapments
• Knee injuries
• Sacroiliac joint injuries

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Sports Injury and Performance Rehabilitation

We will empower you with a better understanding of your biomechanics and ability to care for yourself, whether you are trying to manage your pain, prevent an injury, or come back from a current one. Our mission is to help keep athletes healthy, pain-free, and performing at their highest level. We work with recreational and competitive athletes throughout the Charlotte area to optimize their performance. From Powerlifters, Body Builders, Swimmers, Tri-Athletes, Marathoners and Crossfit athletes, we tailor our treatments to the demands your sport places on your body. Each athlete’s unique movement patterns are considered to identify areas of joint dysfunction and muscular tension. Dr. Tracey focuses on both injury prevention and rehabilitation by utilizing a combination of movement assessment, soft tissue techniques, chiropractic adjustments, as well as stretching, stabilizing, and strengthening exercises to keep you doing what you love, pain-free. Learn more about her techniques below.

Stretching and Myofascial Release Exercise

Stretching is the act of elongating muscles by sustained end range movement. Tight muscles cause dysfunction of the joints, which leads to improper movements. Releasing tight muscles is an important way to prevent an injury from occurring. Stretching benefits include reduced muscle tension, decreased muscle soreness, increased range of movement in the joints, enhanced muscular coordination, increased circulation of the blood to various parts of the body, which enables quicker healing and recovery.

Strengthening Exercises

Building strong muscles is an important way to provide joint stability and prevent injuries from reoccurring. Strengthening exercises are especially important after surgeries that require non-weight bearing of the legs or resting of the upper body.

Post-Operative Care

After surgery, it is imperative for the patient to begin rehabilitative therapy. Discomfort, pain, swelling, and lack or movement are often the immediate result of surgery. This leads to stiffness and weakness of the surrounding muscles and eventually a fibrous band of scar tissue develops. These adhesions typically begin to form with the first few days after surgery, but they may not produce symptoms for months or even years. The scar tissue limits the ease and range of motion of muscles and joints and can decrease the muscles ability to properly function. Once the normal biomechanics of the joint is altered, this can lead to further inflammation and the pattern becomes a vicious cycle of long-term wear and tear. Dr.Tracey uses gentle soft tissue techniques including Myofascial Release Techniques and soft tissue therapy to break up the scar tissue adhesions.

Injury Prevention

Using prevention strategies in your everyday life is an important way to help prevent injuries before they occur. Injury prevention includes everything from proper seat and computer positioning at work, proper sleep positions, and proper driving positions, to stretching before performing strenuous activities.

Benefits of Our Care For Sports Performance

• Decrease pain
• Improve recovery
• Prevent injury
• Increase blood flow
• Improve ranges of motion
• Maintain stability and strength
• Enhanced mind-muscle connection and contraction
• Correct biomechanics for efficient movement patterns
• Get individualized treatments geared towards your goals

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Soft Tissue Therapy

IASTM Chiropractic Treatment

Instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization (IASTM) is an evidence-based technique that enables clinicians to effectively address scar tissue and fascial restrictions through comprehensive training, resulting in improved patient outcomes. Dr. Tracey is certified in level 1 Graston technique, but uses a different set of tools to accomplish the same benefit. This technique uses involves the use of a specifically designed stainless steel instrument, along with appropriate therapeutic exercise, to specifically detect and effectively treat areas exhibiting soft tissue fibrosis or chronic inflammation. The tools are contoured to glide smoothly over different body structures, which also enables Dr. Tracey to diagnostically follow the kinetic chain, to locate and treat the cause of the symptom as well as the specific are of pain. By rubbing the tool over the injured area, it creates local inflammation that brings new blood to the area, helping the tissue to heal. The chiropractic Graston technique is extremely useful on areas of chronic inflammation and tendonitis.

Benefit of IASTM:

• Decreases overall treatment time
• Enables faster rehabilitation/recovery
• Reduces need for anti-inflammatory medication
• Resolves chronic conditions thought to be permanent
• Continue to remain active

Manual Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization

MSTM is applied to muscles and surrounding fascia, ligaments, and tendons to restore ranges of motion, and reduce inflammation. Techniques can involve ischemic compression, assisted stretching and trigger point activation.

Neuromuscular Percussion

Featuring the HYPERVOLT, this tool and technique is applied over large areas of soft tissue to invigorate circulation and reduce tension. For athletes, this therapy primes muscles for pain-free performance.

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SFMA/Corrective Exercise and Functional Movement Training

The Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA) is a movement chiropractic technique consisting of a series of seven full-body movement tests designed to assess fundamental patterns of movement such as bending and squatting in those with known musculoskeletal pain. When the clinical assessment is initiated from the perspective of the movement pattern, Dr. Tracey has the opportunity to identify meaningful impairments that may be seemingly unrelated to the main musculoskeletal complaint, but contribute to the associated disability. This concept, known as Regional Interdependence, is the hallmark of SFMA.

The assessment guides mobility chiropractor, Dr. Tracey, towards the most dysfunctional non-painful movement pattern, which is then assessed in detail. This approach is designed to complement the existing exam and serve as a model to efficiently integrate the concepts of posture, muscle balance and the fundamental patterns of movement into musculoskeletal practice. By addressing the most dysfunctional non-painful pattern, the application or targeted interventions (manual therapy and therapeutic exercise) is not adversely affected by pain.

Corrective exercise and functional movement training breaks down your movements, finds your movement faults and muscle imbalances, and corrects them so that you can walk, run, sit and stand better. As people, we create bad moving habits and it can greatly affect our quality of life. Everyone that moves can benefit from corrective exercise and functional movement training, not only will it help with everyday movement, but it will also improve your posture and your all-around strength. We are here to correct those bad habits so that you can get back to a better quality of life.

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