The Brain, Pain, and the Neuroplastic Effects of Chiropractic Care
(Room Main Stage - Vendome)
08 Feb 20
3:00 PM
-
4:00 PM
Tracks:
Chiropractic Principles
Dr. Heidi Haavik is an award-winning chiropractor and PhD trained neurophysiologist who will cover, in a fun and entertaining way, the latest scientific understanding about the function of the spine and its impact on brain function. The complex neurophysiology will be presented in an easy to understand and clinically practical manner for students and DCs. Dr Haavik will also cover the latest contemporary understanding about pain, and in particular chronic pain. How pain is always 100% of the time created in the brain, due to either tissue damage, or even just the potential for tissue damage. She will cover how this changes and adapts over time depending on the persons experiences. We now know that for a lot of chronic pain there may no longer be any tissue damage present at all – it has become a learnt problem within the brain itself. Physiological and psychological stress, sleep disturbance, pain and the microbiome all play a major role in this maladaptive process, and Heidi will cover this as well. And she will explain how the latest understanding about the mechanisms of an adjustment, based on the latest relevant scientific research studies, explains how we are likely altering the way a person’s brain is ‘feeling’ pain. We used to think we were ‘fixing’ problems locally in the spine, when it now turns out we are more likely to be ‘fixing’ problems at the level of the brain, by improving spinal movement patterns when we adjust. And that we are therefore turning down or switching off the sensation of pain directly in the brain.