What is the Difference Between a Chiropractor and a Physical Therapist?
While both Chiropractic and physical therapy provide a hands-on approach to healthcare, they differ in many ways.
Here is an obvious statement: physical therapy is a therapy. It is in the name. What is a ‘therapy’? A therapy is a prescribed act designed to treat symptoms of a disease or disorder. A therapeutic act is done through different physical, mental or pharmacological modalities.
Physical therapists treat symptoms associated with movement disorders. Physical therapy helps improve movement, manage pain, and prevent or recover from injuries. This is done through prescribed modalities that stretch, massage and exercise certain body parts.
Chiropractic, on the other hand, is not a therapy. Chiropractic does not treat symptoms through physical, mental or pharmacological modalities. Chiropractors analyze the spine to locate, adjust and correct vertebral subluxations.
A vertebral subluxation is the incorrect arrangement of a spinal bone that interferes with nerve function. A vertebral subluxation is not a disease, a disorder, or the symptom of a disease or disorder. It is the cause of a dysfunction rather than its effects.
A vertebral subluxation causes suboptimal nerve function. This disrupts how nerves sense, perceive and behave. Correcting a vertebral subluxation improves the expression of our health, no matter what disease is present or not.
While Chiropractic differs from physical therapy, it doesn’t make it at odds with physical therapy. Or any other healthcare profession for that matter. Thinking in those terms is the wrong mindset. Health is more than the sum of its parts. We need a holistic approach to our healthcare.
Chiropractic is unique out of necessity. A healthcare system that just treats the effects of disease and ignores correcting its causes will be deficient. Chiropractic plays a part in removing a negative to allow a more positive expression of health.
- Jarek Esarco, DC, CACCP
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Jarek Esarco, DC, CACCP is a pediatric, family wellness and upper cervical specific Chiropractor. He is an active member of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (ICPA). Dr. Jarek has postgraduate certification in Pediatric Chiropractic through the ICPA. Dr. Jarek also has postgraduate certification in the HIO Specific Brain Stem technique through The TIC Institute. Dr. Jarek is happily married to his wife Regina. They live in Youngstown, Ohio with their daughter Ruby
