Chiropractic Care

Our Signature Approach

Care in this office utilizes the best of both worlds combining passive interventions with active interventions to guide you carefully through your journey to health through the early stages of acute pain relief on to the later stages of improving strength, endurance, and flexibility to minimize the risk of re-injury.

The 4 Phases of Care

The doctors tailor patient treatment plans to what is appropriate for that specific person based on the following:

how severe/acute they presented to the office
how long it has been going on, and
how the patient responded to initial care

Although everyone is different, there is a typical pattern that we follow when scheduling a treatment plan. We’ve established the four phases of care to act as a guide to accomplish our patients’ individual goals. Each of the components of the care plan are essential to the healing process. If a patient should choose to opt out of care at any point, they may have an increased likelihood of experiencing a re-occurrence of their symptoms.

Phase 1 – Relief/Acute Phase

Phase 2 – Corrective Phase

Phase 3 – Strengthening Phase

Phase 4 – Wellness Phase

Phase 1 – Relief/Acute Phase

Phase 2 – Corrective Phase

Phase 3 – Strengthening Phase

Phase 4 – Wellness Phase

Relief/Acute Phase

When a member of the practice enters the office for the first time, they typically need care focused on reducing pain to help them return to their normal activities of daily living such as working, caring for their family, and simply taking care of themselves. This initial phase of care typically takes two to four weeks to complete. The goals in this phase of care are to alleviate pain, reduce inflammation, and reduce muscle spasm and guarding. Phase 1 primarily utilizes passive therapies to accomplish said goals. Here is a list of passive therapies we provide based on each patients’ individual needs.

Chiropractic adjustments (manual and instrument assisted)
Activator Methods
Non-surgical spinal decompression (Flexion-Distraction Technique)
Low force joint mobilization
Cryotherapy/Hydrocollator (cold-pack and moist heat therapies)
Assisted stretching
Instrument-assisted soft tissue release (myofascial scraping)
Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS)
Myofascial cupping
Kinesiology tape

Corrective Phase

Phase 2 begins after the first re-evaluation. Depending on the patients’ general health and their response to care throughout their initial phase, the Corrective Phase typically takes 4-8 weeks with a graduation in frequency of visits. The goals in Phase 2 are to correct compensatory posture and movement patterns and retrain proper muscle function by way of stretching and releasing “tight” muscle groups and improving the endurance of “weak” or dysfunctional muscle groups. To accomplish these goals, our providers reduce passive modalities utilized during treatment and focus primarily on improving the neuromuscular connection and re-establish balanced movement patterns with the chiropractic adjustment and active therapies. Examples of active therapies utilized by our providers are listed below with a clickable link to our YouTube channel’s demo videos.

Basic at-home/rehabilitative exercises

“With great mobility comes great responsibility. What you do with it from here is up to you” – Dr. James

Strengthening Phase

Once we’ve achieved the balance of muscle groups across dysfunctional joints at the end of Phase 2, patients can continue to improve the strength of the dysfunctional muscles, re-introduce complex movements, and challenge the neuromuscular system to improve coordination and balance. The provider will set up a plan for the patient that takes Phase 2 to the next level. More advanced at-home or in-the-gym exercises are prescribed based on the needs of the patient. Here are some examples of these exercises with a link to our YouTube channel demonstrating each one.

Strengthening, coordination, and balance exercises

“We don’t use machines, we build them.” – Dr. James

Wellness Phase

The Wellness Phase begins when our patients achieve their goals and are no longer demonstrating dysfunctional movement patterns. The frequency of visits in this phase is based upon the amount of wear the body receives on a regular basis and how well prescribed exercises are practiced between appointments. The typical wellness plan ranges between one visit every two weeks and one visit every four weeks. Care during this phase is designed to maintain proper alignment and function and to learn preventive measures to reduce the risk of injury in the future. If continued growth towards optimal well-being is desired, the provider will likely recommend co-management with nutritional support, personal training, or massage therapy. These services are provided at 8 Flags Chiropractic and it’s “sister business,” Personalized Performance.

Passive Therapies
Active Therapies
Sports Therapies
Manual Adjustments
Non-surgical Decompression
Manual and Instrumental-Assisted Myofascial Release
Activator Methods

Passive Therapies

Chiropractic adjustments
The activator method
Low force joint mobilization
Assisted stretching
Non-surgical spinal decompression
Myofascial cupping
TENS
Cryotherapy/ hydrocollator
Kinesiology tape

When a member of the practice enters the office for the first time, they typically need some type of therapy performed to reduce pain, swelling, or muscle spasm. The following passive therapies are provided based on each practice members needs: TENS- A small unit delivers electrical stimulation via either the placement of electrode pads or the Acu-stim pen near the are of complaint. The electricity stimulates the nerves breaking the pain and or muscle spasm cycle. Cupping Therapy- A form of Eastern Medicine, cupping involves creating suction on the skin and underlying tissues to improve adhesions between the layers of tissue. This allows for greater range of motion with less pain. Kinrdiology Tape-Kinesiology tape is an elastic tape primarily used to facilitate proper movement after receiving chiropractic care, but has many benefits that extend beyond facilitating proper movement to supporting unstable joints, reducing local swelling, and reducing the appearance of bruises. This tape is hypoallergenic and is wearable for up to 4 or 5 days.

Active Therapies

Therapeutic/rehabilitative exercise
Personal training for weight loss/wellness
Sport specific performance training
Group fitness
Fitness workshops
Nutritional coaching

Sports Performance

Drs James and Jayde strongly believe that movement is an important part of every person’s life. According to Greg Glassman, The CEO of Crossfit “The needs of an olympic athlete and our grandparents differ by degree, not by kind.”

What we interpret this to mean is that all humans are born to move freely and diversely, therefore any deficiency in human movement poses as a potential cause of disability and decreased quality of life.

Our mission is to improve human movement without the use of drugs or surgery, and to empower people on how to overcome the negative adaptations that our bodies are making in response to the daily physical, chemical, and emotional stressors that we all encounter.

Manual Adjustments

Chiropractic care is a natural approach commonly used to control neuromusculoskeletal complaints such as headaches, neck and back pain, arm and leg pain, dysfunction, and jaw pain.

Each adjustment is delivered with precision with the goal to restore motion in an otherwise restricted joint, inhibit the cycle of muscle spasm and pain, and improve overall function by reducing interference in the nervous system.

Non-Surgical Spinal Decompression

Manual decompression is a conservative form of hands on therapy that does more than alleviate spinal pain. This technique, also called Flexion-Distraction, utilizes a specifically designed chiropractic table and involves gentle stretching of the spine and its surrounding muscles and tissues. It has been proven successful in the management of complaints involving disc bulges, degenerative disc disease, facet syndrome, spinal canal stenosis, and scoliosis.

Manual and Instrumental-Assisted Myofascial Release

Myofascial adhesions and muscle dysfunction are commonly associated with restricted and hypermobile joints, which is why soft tissue is one integrate part of the care provided by our doctors. Hands-on techniques include ischemic compression and pin and stretch. Other tools used to help achieve our goals include scraping, percussive massage, and cupping. These techniques break up scar tissue and initiate the healing process to restore function.

Activator Methods

The Activator Method is an alternative to manual adjustments of the spine and extremities. It utilizes a specific protocol that has been widely researched in its safety and effectiveness of managing neuromusculoskeletal complaint. The hand-held tool delivers a gentle, yet effective adjustment to the spine and extremities improving join motion.