Often times people are not sure what chiropractic really means. Chiropractic stems directly from Latin root words. “Chiro” means “of the hand” and “practic” refers to practice. Essentially, it comes down to work done by hand. However, this not very descriptive as we see now with the addition of new technologies that chiropractic can often be done with adjusting instruments. So what is the real definition of chiropractic?
The South Carolina Board of Chiropractic defines chiropractic as “that science and art which utilizes the inherent recuperative powers of the body and deals with the relationship between the nervous system and the spinal column, including its immediate articulations and the role of this relationship in the restoration and maintenance of health”. Let’s break this definition down a little more. Chiropractic is mainly concerned with the nervous system within the spinal column and how abnormal alignment can put pressure on the nervous system.
Abnormal pressure on the nervous system can result in abnormal brain and body communication. Abnormal pressure is caused by a misalignment of our back bones (vertebrae). An integral part of our nervous system, the spinal cord, runs inside all of our vertebrae and has spinal nerves that exit between each vertebra. The actual spinal nerves and spinal cord can be compressed in a way that makes it so our electrical and chemical signals cannot return to the brain in a proper way. This misalignment of a vertebra, occlusion of signals, pressure on the nervous system, and interference is called a “subluxation”. Overall, health is achieved through a fully functioning nervous system and the removal of subluxations. This is why chiropractic focuses on the spinal column, subluxations, the nervous system, and articulations in order to achieve and maintain health within the population. Therefore, improving brain and body communication and removing subluxations is essentially what chiropractic means.
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