for over 20 years
VIC 3012, Australia
Serving Melbourne
for over 30 years
35 Churchill Ave , Maidstone, VIC 3012, Australia
We’ve all heard it before “stand up straight”, “stop slouching”, “don’t laze on that chair” it seems like every generation hears the same words from their parents. But is posture as simple as it sounds and is it the cause of pain?
Human evolution has occurred over millions and millions of years. During this time our brains have evolved in three distinct phases. About 300 million years ago our brainstem started to develop. This provides our automated body control responses and our flight or fight mechanisms. From here our limbic or emotional centres began to develop increasing our brain mass and providing us with enhanced functions. Finally, over the last 2-3 million years our frontal lobes grew.
As we look through evolutionary development, we see very specific posture changes relating to the emergence of new areas of the brain. For example, most reptiles are low to the ground and have very simple movement mechanisms. Mammals on the other hand tend to be higher off the ground and more mobile. But the real changes have occurred in the last 2-3 million years where our neocortex (new brain) has developed.
Over years of development there’s no doubt muscular activation patterns have changed. Our neocortex is an overlay on previous evolutionary development stimulating and inhibiting our older reptilian areas to help guide and control our survival mechanisms.
As this occurs, our extensor muscle function has evolved and developed allowing us to slowly move from a flat reptilian posture up through all four legs to the erect posture we should have today. It’s our higher brain development that has allowed this to occur.
You can see this in infant development. As a child begins their journey into brain development there is a slow increase in extensor tone until they can, crawl, sit and eventually stand unassisted.
When the brain fails our posture often does too. The lack of cortical function can result in an ape-like posture. A rounded shoulders posture with the head craned forward and a lethargy look.
These brain changes can happen for many reasons. The most obvious time this is visible is in people who have had a significant stroke where one side of the body adapts this ‘hemiplegic’ posture. But there are many non-pathological causes of similar patterns.
The most common reason we see this rounded shoulder posture is because of brain fatigue. This can come from a variety of reasons such as:
Posture can sometimes be purely a structural problem. Our spine is made up of 33 spinal bones known as vertebrae. These bones stack on top of each other to form a smooth flowing tower protecting our spinal cord whilst still allowing for movement.
In some people these bones can lose their nice positioning resulting in changes to posture. This is most notable in teenagers and those in their later years.
Scoliosis is a condition that afflicts people of all ages but most commonly starts in teenagers. Whilst the human spine should be straight when looking from behind, in some people the spine starts to curve sideways resulting in your ribs sitting higher on one side than the other.
This curvature of the spine can arise from many different causes including:
A kyphosis is a rounded shoulder posture resulting in a hump through the middle of your back known as the thoracic spine. This posture can be developmental as a result of slouching for many years, but can also be commonly associated with a condition known as Scheurmann’s disease or compression fracture.
Scheuermann’s disease is a condition in which the vertebrae no longer maintain their nice square shape. This change in shape results in the vertebrae no longer stacking up correctly causing an excessive hump appearance in your back.
Scheuermann’s is believed to be caused by vascular changes to the vertebrae during developmental teenage years and can result in pain during this time.
A similar affect can occur from a specific type of fracture known as a compression fracture. Compression fractures also often result in the change in shape of your vertebrae and commonly occur as a result of osteoporosis.
If you’re like most people, the chances are your back or neck pain isn’t coming directly from your posture. However, posture problems can commonly result in muscular fatigue contributing to pain in the back or neck.
Whilst many people look for help from a back brace in Melbourne, this form of treatment alone often isn’t the right answer. Braces can help people learn where straight is and relieve the fatigue of being upright, but can potentially also lead to a relying on it and even a weakening of the musculature if not used correctly.
Our team of expert body alignment chiropractors are highly trained in all the causes of posture problems. Through our detailed structural, neurological, muscular and physiological assessments our team can identify whether your posture problems are likely to be neurological, structural, fatigue or muscular in nature and develop a specific customized program of care to maximize your chance of improvement.
We are a natural health care center that provides chiropractic services. Known among the best chiropractors in Maidstone, our practitioners are trained in Applied Kinesiology and are focused on not just pain, but total health and well being for everyone from infants to professional athletes. We create individual programs based on thorough assessments empowering you to decide whether you just want to get out of pain or really improve the quality of your health and life.
Our practitioners are either certified or diplomates in Applied Kinesiology by the International College of Applied Kinesiology and are also nationally registered Chiropractors. The knowledge they have allows us to quickly identify problems of a structural and physiological nature allowing us to work with problems beyond what most people have classically associated with Chiropractic care.
The result is a level of care not experienced by many previously.
We understand the importance of first-class chiropractic treatment and do what it takes to offer high-quality yet affordable services so you can live your best life.
The team at Spinewise is passionate, committed, and caring, ready to serve patients across key areas in and around Melbourne.
Many people are often concerned whether the practitioners they are looking to can help them. That’s completely normal and we understand this. But there truly is only one true way of knowing whether we can help you or not and that is with a thorough assessment. What we can say is that we promise to be truthful, open and honest with our findings and also work with you to achieve goals you would like to achieve in ways you feel comfortable in achieving them. We understand for many people they still feel a little insecure, and that’s ok. So if you would like to have a brief chat with one of our practitioners about your case prior to coming in, arrange a 10 minute phone appointment with one of our practitioners so we can quickly work out if your problem is one we often work with.
Your initial assessment is the most important appointment you’ll have with our team. Your initial assessment provides us with the time to gather all the important bits of information we need to adequately identify the cause of your problems and work with you heading forward. It is comprised of various health, neurological, physiological and biomechanical tests designed to not only find the cause of your problem, but to help us identify any other potential problems that might be developing.
Often we may require the use of further assessments such as our digital foot scanning technology or heart rate variability technology. In some circumstances we may need to refer you for specialized imagery, such as X-Rays or MRI, or for various laboratory tests. Rest assured our team will walk you through this process so there are no worries or fears along the way.
The complete process of an initial assessment can take up to one hour depending upon the complexity of your problem.
Most health funds have some form of rebate for Chiropractic services. A quick call to your private health insurance provider should be able to answer this for you. Usually there is a separate section for ancillary healthcare which includes Chiropractic, Osteopathy, physiotherapy and other similar health care practices. So simply give your insurer a call and they’ll be able to advise you on your level of coverage.
In terms of our office, when you attend for your appointment we’ll provide you with an itemized receipt which you can use to immediately claim your assessment off. This allows you to keep track of your rebates without any stress at all.
Chiropractic care is not directly medicare rebatable in Australia. However, our practitioners do like working with your GP to provide an integrative approach to your health. As such, our team do accept Enhanced Primary Care (EPC) arrangements which allows for some rebates to be paid by medicare.
If you’re unsure or have specific questions in relation to the use of your EPC plan, just give our office a call and we’ll discuss its use with you further.
We have our own specific parking available right behind our office. Feel free to park within this space. Otherwise, there is free parking available on the road alongside our office on Curtin Street.
Tottenham station is approximately 1.5km along Ashley Street and Dobson’s Reserve bus stop is also a mere 50m from our office. Many people attending our office get here via the bus and train.
We are a natural health care centre that provides Chiropractic and Natural Health services. Our practitioners are trained in Applied Kinesiology and are focused on not just pain, but total health and wellbeing for everyone from infants to professional athletes.
