Terms

Subluxation

A spinal segment or contiguous structure that has lost normal motion.

There are three causes of this condition: Trauma, which may be acute, that is, short term such as a sudden fall, auto accident, athletic injury etc. or chronic which means long term, typically repetitive minor traumas such as keyboarding or continuous bending and lifting or sitting throughout the workday. Toxins, which may be either internal such as too much caffeine, sugar, or chemicals from processed foods such as preservatives, dyes or flavor enhancers, or external such as air quality or chemical exposure at the workplace. Stress is the third cause. This may be the most difficult off all since it involves both mental and emotional factors which many times are out of our immediate control.

In all cases, there is a muscular response/reaction to the insult which results in increased muscle tone or even spasm producing the condition of hypomobility. The body responds to this lesion with a process called inflammation.

Inflammation produces four classic components: heat, due to the increased blood flow the local temperature of the tissue is elevated; edema, which is an accumulation of fluids containing reparatory cells (a common example would be a fat swollen sprained ankle); redness of the internal tissue, again due to increased blood flow, (think of a bruise or pinkish area around a cut or abrasion); and finally, pain which is the brain's interpretation of messages being sent from the site of insult through the nervous system.

Hypomobility

Hypo means "less than" and mobility means "movement or motion". A spinal joint is meant to move in all three axes, that is, flexion and extension (forward and backward), rotation left and right and lateral flexion (tipping to the right or the left). A hypomobile segment has either reduced or a total loss of movement in one or all of these three directions.