Subluxation

A chiropractic examination will assess your overall posture and movement patterns, and look closely at the movements at each individual joint in your spine.

A common finding is that one or more spinal joints may have poor movement – they may be stiff, tight, restricted, or completely locked up. Chiropractors call this abnormal movement a spinal Subluxation or Spinal Joint Dysfunction (SJD)

(The Chiropractic use of the word “subluxation” is distinct from the medical definition, which describes a subluxation as a “partial dislocation of a joint”).

Spinal subluxation or SJD commonly causes symptoms such as local stiffness and/or pain, and tight muscles in the area of the joint dysfunction. This may result in back pain or neck pain.

In many cases of spinal joint dysfunction however, there may be no obvious symptoms at all despite there being a loss of function in one or more areas upon examination by a chiropractor.

Chiropractors are experts in assessing the subtle dysfunctions associated with spinal subluxations, and correcting them with gentle manipulation, which we call a Chiropractic Adjustment.