Health & Wellness Key Terms
ACUPUNCTURE: an ancient Chinese system of complementary medicine that involves puncturing the skin or tissue with very small needles—often too small to feel—used to alleviate pain and to treat various physical, mental, and emotional conditions.
ADJUSTMENT: an intentional movement of a joint—especially spinal—performed by a licensed chiropractor as a means of correcting misalignment caused by injury, stress, or other events within the body.
CHIROPRACTIC: the health care discipline focusing on disorders of the musculoskeletal system and the nervous system, as well as the effects of those disorders on general health.
COLD LASER: a rehabilitative therapy that uses a low-level laser in a narrow light frequency to safely assist the healing of soft tissue.
NEUROFEEDBACK: a type of biofeedback that measures brain waves in order to produce a signal that can be used as feedback to train the user to self-regulate brain functions. Nashville BrainCore provides this unique, drugless service for people suffering from neurological dysregulation.
NEUROLOGICAL DYSREGULATION: an improper patterning of brain waves, which can cause symptoms associated with a variety of neurological conditions, including anxiety and panic disorders, memory loss associated with aging, depression, insomnia, chronic fatigue, attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), headaches and migraines, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), chronic pain, autism, Asperger’s syndrome, post-stroke symptoms, traumatic brain injuries, and learning disorders, among others.
NUTRITION: the process of providing or obtaining the food necessary for health and growth.
NUTRITIONAL EVALUATION: a comprehensive examination—performed by a clinical nutritionist—of a person’s organs and organ systems with respect to their proper functions. At BCG, this involves an approach combining 27 acupressure points and standards for weight, height, body mass index (BMI), caloric burn, and visceral fat.
NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENT: a product intended for ingestion with the purpose of adding further nutritional value to the diet. A supplement could be a vitamin, mineral, herb, or other nutritional aid.
REFLEXOLOGY: a system of massage used to relieve tension and treat illness by applying pressure to specific reflex points on the feet, which are linked to every other part of the body.
SPINAL DECOMPRESSION: a non-surgical, decompressive therapy for the relief of back and leg pain or neck and arm pain. The procedure isolates a spinal disc and places it under negative pressure, causing a vacuum effect that can pull disc material that has protruded or herniated back within the disc. Additionally, this vacuum effect stimulates blood supply within the disc, causing a healing response resulting in pain reduction.
SUBLUXATION: a misalignment of vertebrae. Often a catalyst for dysfunction within the body, a subluxation can have physical, emotional, or chemical causes. Chiropractors are trained to identify and correct these vertebral misalignments.
TREATMENT PLAN: a schedule of wellness visits designed to save the patient money over time by bundling multiple appointments into fewer payments. Many plans include multiple services.
VITAMIN: an organic compound that is essential for good health and must be taken in through one’s diet because the body cannot produce it.
