Chiropractic rehabilitation of the cervical spine

Rehabilitation has been a part of chiropractic almost since the beginning of the profession. Yet today, relatively few chiropractors provide rehabilitation in any systematic way in their practices. The modern era of health care calls for all spine specialists to emphasize exercise in their management strategies, and the chiropractic profession has the opportunity to establish itself as a leader in the area of rehabilitation in patients with spine-related disorders.

To present the principles and techniques of cervical rehabilitation as it is used by the author and explain the rationale for these procedures based on current knowledge of the neurophysiology of the cervical spine.

Rehabilitation of the cervical spine can be performed by virtually any chiropractor because effective rehabilitative methods can be applied with minimal space and equipment. The methods presented here are designed to assess several essential functions of the cervical spine and apply procedures that are designed to maximize these functions while monitoring the clinical response to the management strategy. Future research in this area should provide more information about cervical function and assist in the development of improved management of patients with cervical spine syndromes.