Longstanding NUCCA practitioner Dr. Robert Brooks spoke to the Upper Cervical Club at Parker College of Chiropractic on Wednesday July 15, 2009. Approximately 25-30 students were on hand to hear his talk on Upper Cervical Chiropractic.
Dr. Brooks began by telling everyone he matriculated into Palmer at the age of 17. His second year out of school, he opened the doors to his clinic, where he quickly built a high volume practice seeing 200 patients a day.
Not long after that, he shut down his practice and went on an 18-month journey to find out what chiropractic technique was the best. He studied 250 techniques and reviewed chiropractic history for countless hours. His journey led him to NUCCA, and in 1977, he re-opened the doors to his clinic practicing the NUCCA technique.
Dr. Brooks went on to explain that there are two camps of people: the ones in pain that just want to be happy (the majority of people) and the ones willing to have interference removed and find out what symptoms they have left after that, if any. He added that headaches are not a Tylenol deficiency.
He then went on to differentiate between the articular-based upper cervical techniques (HIO, Duff, Blair, Kale, KCUCS) and the orthogonal-based techniques (Wernsing, Grostic, NUCCA, Atlas Orthogonal, Orthospinology, etc.). He explained that the two camps are looking for the same thing, which is an upper cervical subluxation. They just look at it from two different points of view.
Dr. Brooks then went into the Atlas Subluxation Complex. He explained that the atlas is only held together by ligaments, tendons, and muscle. “When there is a misalignment at the atlas, it takes everything with it,” he explained.
He showed diagrams of a spine with an atlas subluxation and without. The diagram with the subluxation depicted a twisted spine, a tilted torso, a high hip, and a short leg on one side. He asked “Which bone is out of place?” to which the answer was “All of them!”
Dr. Brooks had everyone stand up and take the weight off one foot, then the other, demonstrating what the results of an atlas subluxation feels like. He explained “This is what people are living with everyday.”
Dr. Brooks revealed that he has taken over 15,000 sets of x-rays during his time in practice. Every one of those patients always had a short leg, a high or low hip, and they leaned to the left or right.
He then described the stages of a NUCCA treatment plan: correct the spinal misalignment, schedule follow-up visits to make sure correction is holding, teach people how to tell when their spine is misaligned again, and show people how to prevent the loss of their correction.
Dr. Brooks explained that for every year a patient has had a misalignment in their spine, it takes approximately one month for the body to heal. He added that if someone holds their adjustment for 20 months and then loses it, they don’t experience the symptoms they originally experienced when they came to him. They experience symptoms from 20 years ago. He said this has been true of virtually all of his patients.
Dr. Brooks then made the point that a spine that has been injured and then corrected is not as healthy as a spine that was never injured in the first place. He stressed this point to the students and implored everyone to own this concept.
He then revealed that he has trained 55 associates and interns and that 54 of his patients have gone on to become chiropractors themselves.
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I love listening to this man talk! Of all the upper cervical practices I’ve visited, his model of patient care is my absolute favorite.
Dr. Brooks is a genius. As a life-long patient of his I attest that the work he does is monumental. A great man and a great Doctor.