The Importance of Lower Extremity Care at the Chiropractic Practice

Lower extremity care plays a key role in the chiropractic practice.

Misalignments, subluxations, and other conditions at the extremity level, especially the feet and ankles, can cause a cascading effect, impacting the patient’s overall health and increase risk of disability.

According to the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners, 95% of chiropractors adjust extremities, extremity problems account for 20% of chiropractic care, and 47% of patients receive extremity adjustments.

Patients are becoming increasingly interested in integrative, complimentary, and holistic care options. Demand for extremity and full-body chiropractic care is on the rise.

MLS Laser Therapy offers chiropractors another tool for their arsenal of holistic pain management modalities that elevate care, broaden the scope of their capabilities, and help them surpass the limitations of traditional approaches.

Therapy lasers emit a concentrated beam of light energy into the tissue where photons are absorbed by the mitochondria to stimulate the production of ATP, resulting in a variety of different biological effects, including:

• Promoting tissue regeneration and wound healing by stimulating fibroblast development.
• Reducing inflammation and edema by stimulating blood flow and lymphatic drainage.
• Inducing analgesia by easing nociceptors and stimulating the release of endorphins and enkephalins.

The Multiwave Locked System (MLS) is a unique Class IV laser technology that synchronizes continuous and pulsed emissions to produce a simultaneous effect on pain and inflammation. Due to these effects, MLS Laser Therapy has great potential for helping patients who are suffering from a variety of musculoskeletal, inflammatory, degenerative, and neuropathy conditions.

With expanded capabilities, chiropractors can accommodate a variety of conditions that may be difficult to approach with traditional chiropractic techniques.

For example, MLS Laser Therapy offers tremendous benefits for patients suffering from peripheral neuropathy by reducing the inflammation surrounding the nerves.

Clinical studies observing the effects of laser therapy on nerves have also revealed that laser therapy can improve regeneration of peripheral nerves, increase nerve function, improve capacity for myelin production, and promote axonal growth.

Moving up the extremity, MLS Laser Therapy offers benefits to a variety of knee and hip conditions, including osteoarthritis. With a penetration depth of four to five centimeters, the MLS Laser stimulates biological processes deep within the joint to improve joint flexion, pain, and pressure sensitivity among patients with knee osteoarthritis.

Combined with other chiropractic methods, or as a standalone modality, MLS Laser therapy can improve extremity care with decreased pain and inflammation, shorter recovery times, and increased function and mobility.