THE HEALING BRAIN

A properly stimulated brain heals faster than one that struggles just to keep up.

A well functioning brain is vital to prevent accelerated degeneration of brain tissue and further loss of function. It takes extensive post-graduate study and experience to become a functional neurologist, being qualified to treat many of the same disorders as a medical neurologist. The big difference is that functional neurologists practice neurology without using drugs or surgery.

A functional neurologist specializes in brain-based therapies, those therapies that are based on an understanding of the brain's role in joint and muscle dysfunction. All of our sense receptors connect to nerves that ultimately connect to our spine and brain. As sensory input is routed through the nervous system, it literally and constantly alters the function and structure of the brain. The brain then turns that sensory input into a motor response that regulates the body that houses it, constantly sending information and instructions back to all body parts, including the receptor cells that gathered the sensory information in the first place. So all of our sense receptors, joints, muscles, nerves, spine, and brain form a single integrated system in constant communication with itself.

Changing any one part of this integrated system consequently affects all its other parts. The functional neurologist specializes in assessing the health of every part of this functional loop and identifying the imbalances in those parts that will lead to the problem(s) affecting the rest as a whole. Treatments may include any stimulus that best benefits the individual patient, which may be specialized chiropractic adjustments, neuromuscular re-education exercises, and/or stimulation of the auditory, visual, vestibular (balance), or other sensory systems.

Functional neurology is all about finding what area of the brain is not functioning properly and why, then delivering the right amount of stimulation to that specific area of the brain that can rehabilitate its neurons and restore its optimal function.