So last week I reviewed an article about the benefits of spending time in nature and specifically how it could help children and adults with ADHD.
As you were reading that article I know you were thinking \”This is amazing information. I really appreciate Dr. Scott taking the time to write these articles, but he\’s a Chiropractor. What does spending time in nature have to do with Chiropractic? And does Chiropractic offer any benefit to children with ADHD?\”
I\’m so glad you asked!
Yes in fact there have been quite a few case studies published showing children, and adults, diagnosed with ADHD benefiting from Chiropractic care.
In reading through these different published studies there were a few really important themes I noticed throughout all of them.
The first was that almost all of the children in the studies had some sort of a difficult birth. Many were delivered with the aid of forceps or vacuum extraction. Some were just very long labors and the mothers had to be induced to help in the process.
The second theme that was in the majority of studies were that all of the children studied had some sort of postural distortions. Meaning when they were standing in a neutral position they were not lined up. For example their head may be tilted or shifted to the side when you looked at them from the front, or their shoulders were not level. When looking at them from the side their head might have been shifted forward. If the examination include X-rays all of the children in the studies also had a reduction in the normal curve that should be present in their spine through their neck.
The difficult births and changes in posture go hand in hand. Using forceps or vacuum extraction can stress the spine and cause these structural shifts that were then identified by the Chiropractors during the exam. All of the children in the studies were at least 6 to 8 years old so these shifts in the spine are not self correcting or they wouldn\’t be present this long after birth.
The link between the structural shifts in the spine and ADHD is where Chiropractic can provide some benefit. While there is no single cause of ADHD it is known that there are changes in the brain in the regions that control focus and mood. That is why so many of the children diagnosed have, in addition to the inability to focus and stay on task, difficulty socially with peers and teachers.
When there are structural shifts in the cervical spine (neck) it alters the blood flow to the spinal cord, lower brain stem and even the other regions of the brain. These shifts also cause a disruption in the signal going to the brain from the spine and even other parts of the body. This disrupted signal can overload the brain and lead to difficulty processing the things happening around them hence the inability to focus.
Structural Chiropractic care, what we do in our office, can realign and balance the spine. With the spine realigned normal blood flow, and nerve signal processing occurs. This is why in all the the case studies published the children had reductions in their symptoms while under Chiropractic care.
In some of the cases the children also had their diet evaluated and may have been put on specific supplements such as fish oil or probiotics. If you read our other articles you know the benefits of these supplements on nervous system function. If you missed any of them they are linked on our Facebook page. Just click the link below and scroll through our posts to find them.
Like most of the articles I review and write about this has implications for everyone regardless if they have ADHD or not. I mean who doesn\’t want their brain functioning at its peak with proper blood flow?
