Seeking chiropractic care can be beneficial for people of all ages, but there are always risks when seeking a new healing method. Chiropractic care for seniors does have some significant pros and cons. Chiropractic care for seniors is possible and can help give them a better quality of life. 

Many seniors experience back pain (over 6% experience debilitating back pain) so seeking medication or natural healing can be a helpful option. Spinal manipulation is the leading treatment for lower back pain, which can help limit other symptoms seniors experience. Whether seniors want to use chiropractic practices as a complementary method or prevention of future problems, Elevate Wellness can help. 

Is Chiropractic Care For Seniors Safe?

The overall answer is, yes. For many different patients, chiropractic care happens weekly without any injury or side effects. Some patients do experience soreness or stronger symptoms of pain during their first few appointments. For seniors, some of these side effects can be debilitating or turn them off from chiropractic care. 

Chiropractors are trained and know how to treat different bodily issues in a safe way. Chiropractors are doctors and often only adjust where you tell them to. Talking with your chiropractor about your goals and fears will help you feel more comfortable during your appointment. 

Benefits:

Lowering The Risk Of Falls

Chiropractic can help seniors learn stretches and limit subluxations that can lead to better balance and leg strength. Utilizing chiropractic can help limit the risk of falls for seniors that have been falling more recently. Helping to improve posture and balance is a major benefit of chiropractic care for seniors. 

Limit Symptoms Of Chronic Conditions

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Arthritis, Crohn’s Disease, ALS, and Cystic Fibrosis can affect people of all ages, but more elderly people experience chronic conditions. These conditions and more can be improved by utilizing chiropractic care and proper exercise. While chiropractic care and spinal adjustment will not cure these chronic conditions, they can help you or a loved one experience fewer adverse effects or have a better quality of life. 

Cons:

Soreness Can Occur

After adjusting muscles or joints that have not been used in a long time, you may experience soreness. For elderly patients, this soreness can be more severe or cause extreme nerve pain. A chiropractor will work to prevent pinched nerves and give you instructions to limit soreness, but this is a potential con of chiropractic care. Especially during the first few appointments. 

Bone Fractures Or Breaks

As we age, our bones can become more fragile and susceptible to breaks. Visiting a chiropractor as an elderly person could increase the risk of bone fractures or breaks. While a chiropractor is trained and experienced, there is always a risk when it comes to working with the spine or other fragile areas. For elderly patients with osteoporosis or other bone diseases, it is best to consult with a doctor before seeing a chiropractor. 

How To Continue The Benefits At Home

Seeing a chiropractor regularly will help seniors have better mobility, but there are some steps to help them take at home to ensure the benefits carry throughout the week. 

Making their home safer can help limit the risk of falls or injury and help them still feel independent in their own home. Clearing the floor of debris or tripping hazards can be a major place to start. It can also be helpful to move around furniture and come up with a more open layout for them to maneuver through.

Some additional things that can help after chiropractic care for seniors include:

• Keeping the home well lit
• Doing stretches or light exercises in the morning
• Wear shoes inside instead of socks and slippers
• Put things on lower shelves to avoid strain and step stools
• Get plenty of vitamins and sunlight

Chiropractic Care With Elevate Wellness

Dr. Simmonds knows firsthand how chiropractic can help improve your quality of life. Our office wants to help athletes, pregnant mothers, children, and older adults all have the best mobility possible. Whether you have a health condition or just want to prevent pain in later years, chiropractic adjustment can work for you. Call our office in Bountiful, UT to get started! We take most major insurances and our office staff is happy to answer any questions you may have.

Dealing with digestive issues like irritable bowel syndrome, indigestion, dyspepsia, gas, and abdominal pain can be difficult. Digestive problems can distract you during your work, make it hard to enjoy eating, and may even keep you homebound. Those who struggle with these issues may try multiple medications or doctors to help reduce their symptoms, but one thing they may not consider is working with a chiropractor.

A chiropractor can help manage your stomach problems by improving your spine shape and your joint mobility. We want to share more information about how chiropractic helps with digestion and how it can help those with digestive diseases listed above. 

Common Symptoms Of Digestive Problems

Each person will experience different symptoms and react to different foods depending on what digestive issue they have. There are some common symptoms that come with Chrons, IBS, indigestion, etc. 

Some common symptoms to watch for can include:

• Heartburn
• Nausea
• Bloating
• Going to the bathroom more often than you should
• Runny bowel movements
• Blood in stool
• Difficulty having bowel movements
• Severe lack of energy
• Noticing cramping in your stomach
• Constipation
• Gas

Subluxation In The Spine

The slight misalignment of your vertebrae is known as subluxation. If this occurs in certain areas of the spine it can lead to problems like diarrhea and constipation and disrupt the communication between the spine and the digestive system. 

Chiropractors focus on improving subluxations and spinal miscommunication so that your entire body can function better. A chiropractic adjustment helps to reduce pressure on the spine and nerves, which can help your brain relay key information to the digestive system. Nerves in the body carry information to the brain that can help your body to process food or drinks. Adjusting your spine or abdominal muscles can help you limit constipation or bloating. 

How The Digestive System Is Connected To The Spine

Understanding how your spine is connected to the digestive system may help you feel more open to chiropractic care. Chiropractors are versed in the spinal cord, vertebrae, and back, but these areas can help contribute to other mobility areas of the body. 

Your digestive tract gets signals from your spinal cord so that your whole body can work to digest food, and nutrients, and expel unneeded waste. Your body contains nerves from the spine to your digestive system and if signals can not make it all the way to your brain, your digestive system will have a hard time working properly. 

Chiropractors can look at the state of your spine and other body systems to see where they can make adjustments. Talking with your chiropractor about your goals and where you are experiencing pain can help you both understand where to adjust and help improve your digestion.

How Can Chiropractic Help Aid In Digestion?

Manual therapy is used by chiropractors to help realign spinal discs, vertebrae, and muscle groups. Your digestive tract can be blocked by misalignment or your body may not be able to absorb certain nutrients because of the misalignment of the spine. 

When your chiropractor adjusts your spine, it helps you to digest minerals and vitamins and helps you feel more energized. Chiropractic treatment can help in digestion but it can also give you more energy to exercise and sleep better which can help you feel less bloated or have limited bowel movements. 

Chiropractic With Elevate Wellness

Our team at Elevate Wellness can help improve mobility in patients and improve other issues such as headaches, digestion, injuries, and stress. Elevate Wellness and our chiropractor, Dr. Simmonds, can help patients of all ages to gain a better quality of life. 

Chiropractic can help with digestion, but it can also help with many other issues or prepare you for situations in life. Pregnant women, athletes, and the elderly can all benefit from proper chiropractic care as well. Chiropractic can help your joints move better, prevent injury, and help your brain communicate with all systems clearly. 

Contact our team to learn more about what we can offer and schedule an appointment!

Many people who seek chiropractic care can benefit from quality stretching and exercise. Utilizing exercise with chiropractic care can help improve your range of motion and flexibility even more. Living a pain-free lifestyle can be achieved with low-impact exercises and working with a licensed chiropractor.

Chiropractic alone can help limit your pain, but many patients also seek holistic healing and low-impact exercises to help them continue to improve in all aspects.

Elevate Wellness wants to help you gain more motion and work on building up your muscles without injuring you. Chiropractic is safe and a noninvasive way to help improve your body. Avoid surgery or strong medications by combining exercise with chiropractic care. 

Pool Exercises For Bad Joints

If you are just beginning chiropractic treatment, pool exercises may help limit your pain and give you the ease of moving while in the water. Pool exercise with chiropractic care can help you build muscle and get your heart pumping without being so hard on your joints. 

Some common pool exercises that can help limit pain include:

• Walking in shallow water and doing lunges
• Jogging in place
• Standing knee lifts
• Hip kicking 
• Pool planking

Improve Your Motion And Flexibility

More and more people lose flexibility from sitting at a desk, bad posture, text neck, or other sedentary days. If you don’t practice flexibility stretches and move your body daily, you can lose flexibility and range of motion earlier than you should. 

Even stretching before you begin exercising can help limber your joints and prevent injury during exercise. Doing stretches before hard exercise and stretches after chiropractic treatment will help limit your pain and muscle tension. Static and dynamic stretches can help you in multiple ways when you are seeking chiropractic treatment including limiting back pain, improving your posture, and boosting your mood. 

Some flexibility exercises that you can combine with chiropractic care include:

• Standing hamstring stretch
• Triceps stretches
• Frog stretch
• Butterfly stretch
• Knee to chest stretch
• Seated rotational stretch

Strengthen Bones And Muscles

When your spine is aligned your bones and muscles work better together and become stronger. When bones function properly, you take away extra stress and discomfort. Strong bones and muscles can help you feel younger and may even help limit pain in certain areas. 

Chiropractic care can help your muscles function more systematically and prevent muscle injury. Aligning bones and joints help your brain be able to send signals to them effectively and helps build them up. Chiropractic can help with diseases like osteoporosis, musculoskeletal deformations, low blood cell counts, and more that can be life-altering.

Boost Your Mood And Self-Esteem

Regular exercise with chiropractic care can help improve your mood and help with mental health as well as physical health. Moving your body in any way can help release endorphins, improve your sleep, and help you recover faster from illness. All of these benefits can make life much more enjoyable and help you feel productive. 

Chiropractic adjustments can also release endorphins from aligning your spine. These endorphins can come from pain relieving or reducing inflammation. Combining exercise with chiropractic care will help boost your self-confidence and energy levels throughout the day and give you a better quality of life for years to come. 

Elevate Wellness loves to help patients feel better and wants to help them avoid intensive treatment. Working with our office should help you feel seen and improve your understanding of your body. 

Exercise With Chiropractic Care With Elevate Wellness

Everyone in our office wants to help patients have a better quality of life. Our chiropractor, Dr. Casey Simmonds, knows firsthand how chiropractic can help after an injury. If you are experiencing major pain or limited motion, combining exercise with chiropractic care can help you avoid unnecessary surgery or medication. We work with you to narrow down your goals and how you want to feel during your treatment with us. Talking about your health history and how your pain manifests will help us treat you in the best way possible. 

Even if you are not currently having symptoms or just want to improve your immune system function, chiropractic is still right for you. Check out what injuries we treat and how our office can help patients of all ages by checking out our site. Schedule an appointment in our Bountiful office today!