What to expect from a Chiropractor
Every Chiropractor and Chiropractic Clinic can be different, there are over 200 different chiropractic techniques which is why it is hard to know what to expect from a Chiropractor. We are a patient centred clinic, which means we look at you as an individual, we perform a thorough history, a full physical examination and provide a variety of manual therapy techniques to assist with education, activity and facilitate continuation or resumption of work or chosen sport.
What will happen during my visit?
At Walter Road Chiropractic & Sports Injuries you will be surprised how at-home you will feel, we understand how hard it is to find a chiropractor that you can trust so from the very beginning we make sure you feel like you haven’t left. Once you have arrived you can take a seat and fill out your new patient forms. After your form is completed one of our chiropractors will read it prior to taking you into the room.
What to expect from the FIRST appointment
Your first visit to the clinic is extremely important, our experienced chiropractors will run through a structured assessment from history taking to physical examination and orthopedic tests. This is done to establish the diagnosis, find out if we can help and evaluate your health goals. The first step is to allow you to explain in-depth what your chief complaint is, after this, we will spend time generating a comprehensive picture of your health and health problems.
Once completed the next step is to complete a physical examination with orthopedic tests, this is done to assess the performance of your joints, muscles and nervous system. We will observe your posture, check for any mechanical differences, range of motion and a full upper and lower limb neurological assessment. We may also include a functional assessment if its a sports-related injury.
If we establish that it is safe to continue without additional examinations we will then explain to you what your diagnosis is and run through your treatment plan. As time is limited during the first consult and depending on how many problems you come in with will determine what type of treatment to expect from the first visit.
Most Chiropractors do NOT treat on the first visit
This is becoming less common, however, our chiropractors WILL treat on the same visit (as long as it’s safe to do so). We use a wide variety of treatment modalities including adjustments, mobilisations, soft tissue therapy, dry needling and taping. While these are fantastic they generally provide short term results, we also combine our manual therapy with other active methods to provide longer lasting results.
Common problems we see range from general niggles to sports rehab.
If our chiropractors decide to refer you for xrays they will be bulked-billed. These will be explained along with your treatment plan during your next visit.
Report of Findings
This appointment is only required if additional tests have been requested, this represents a very small portion of our patients.
After the initial examination if we decide to get additional tests our chiropractors will spend time going through them and developing a specific goal-oriented treatment plan to make sure we get to the bottom of your problem.
Our goal is to get you out of pain, prevent the problem from coming back and to also maintain your spinal health. We have a unique rehabilitation room where we will show you how to do the exercises and allow you to come in and use the equipment to get the most out of the treatment.
