What if a person loses motion of a couple of segments in their neck, back, or some other joint due to sudden or repetitive trauma?

Continuing with a discussion about losses of motion in the spine (neck and/or back).

A similar loss of central activation occurs. The cord and brain begin to change to accomodate this loss. If it's a sufficient loss, you begin to lose neurons.

Regardless though, if you lose proprioceptive information then you lose some ability to control movement of the area because you have lost some ability to know where it is in space.

Losses of coordinated movement will have other consequences beyond being 'clumsy.' 

You will have a greater chance of being injured as you attempt to move… whether that's simply walking, lifting something, changing position, or doing some athletic activity.

Have you ever had a foot 'go to sleep?'

This common occurance demonstrates that if you lose the ability to know where a body part is in space, you lose the ability to control it.

As you've no doubt found if you have ever tried to walk on the foot while it's 'asleep.'

Imagine trying to go out and play a soccer game on it – or maybe just a game of tag with your kid. 

You would quickly discover that your performance is compromised and you will very likely find yourself on the ground after falling.

What if the loss of position sense was not complete, but partial?

It would make sense that you would lose some ability to control that joint because you've lost some ability to know where it is in space.

If that joint happens to be in your spine, then you are less likely to notice it. Afterall, there are many other joints in the area that move the body region. 

You still are losing activation critical to the nervous system and will have some graded loss of function because in the sensory driven nervous system – input determines output. 

The Chiropractic Adjustment is an efficient way to restore that proprioceptive input to the nervous system thereby allowing a much better control of the area.

It also has other central effects that can be very beneficial in people.

We'll have to discuss some of those effects in another blog post.