A Brief History

Foundations - Neurologically Based Chiropractic and the NeuroInfiniti
During my 32 years in the trenches of clinical practice with the frustrations of patients not being able to make the “leap of faith” from back pain or spine care to our neurological application,  I came to realize that the problem of the communication lay within the profession.

While I operated a very successful practice with high volume and great retention there was still a missing step which lead to patients seeking care for signs and symptoms relief rather than neurological improvement.

After leaving practice in 1995, I spent 4 years as Executive Director of programs for two of the major practice management companies in the profession. In 1999 I left this position as I realized that nothing new for the profession was coming from their approach. I started a new company called Chiropractic Equity Offices Inc (CEO) with the intent to change the direction of chiropractic. In order to be effective, this change had to come from within the profession first; thus I begin a program called Neurologically Based Chiropractic or NBC. It started with new office procedures and dialog that focused on transfering patient’s goals of symptom based care (pain relief) to cause based care (neurological function). The program also helped patients and doctors recognize that there is a difference between patient goals and clinical goals.

The program was very successful but one major challenge continued to plague the continuing development. It was the same challenge which has blocked chiropractic since 1895. Basically – “Where is the proof that chiropractic alters the neurological function?”

This is the same challenge I had during my 32 years of practice and just reverting back to the old dialog of “all we need to know is that chiropractic works”, was just not acceptable!

A New Possibility Appears
As fate (or good planning) would have it, my time spent in Colorado lead me to two incredible people: a husband and wife team of Dr. Annette Long and Dr. Alvah Byers. Both were psychologists and pioneers in Bio/neurofeedback. Their 25 years of experience in brain function and training shared with me brought about a new concept in the role of the chiropractic adjustment and neurological response.

One day, as we were sitting having a social discussion, I suggested that the adjustment altered brain wave activity. Dr. Byers, who had spent 25 years pioneering neurofeedback, was very polite when he patted mey on the back and said, “I don’t think so”. Dr. Long suggested that we put it to a test and so we did. The procedure set the stage for what was to follow over the next three years. Once the candidates were connected with the proper electrodes for EEG work, Dr. Byers sat them down and did a short relaxation talk, then he recorded an EEG session (about 2 minutes). I then adjusted the candidates, manual adjustments – no more than two areas and we waited for 20 minutes. This was an arbitrary amount of time based more on convenience than anything. Following the twenty minutes Dr. Byers re did the EEG scan and we saw changes. This lead to Drs. Byers and Long traveling with us and over the next three years we continued to record pre and post adjustment EEG scans.

The results were very revealing! – We saw incredible changes in EEG patterns following the chiropractic adjustment. We used three different techniques: manual, torque release and light touch. The results were the same.

When we started gathering this information our objective was based on the “Null Hypothesis” which means we set out to prove that the adjustment did nothing to alter brain function. Our conclusion that the adjustment alters brain function came very quickly in that we were seeing very impressive changes in EEG patterns after care. Dr. Byers explained to our group that the changes he was seeing would take between 50 to 200 sessions of neurofeedback to get the same results.

I took some of the data from the years with Drs. Long and Byers and with the help of Dr. Craig Schisler, we did a paper on “The effects of the chiropractic adjustment on brain function as measured by EEG”. Politics reared its head with attempts to get it published until Dr. Ralph Boone read it and then entered it into the Sherman College International Research and Paper Symposium. It was presented, reviewed and won as best paper presented!

At this point, I began communicating with Dr. Ken Vinton regarding EEG and Chiropractic. Ken had attended one of my CEO programs and we soon realized that we had the same concepts in place. Dr. Vinton had been applying EEG and biofeedback in his practice for years with great results.

In the years that followed, we worked with some of the best and the brightest to develop the highest quality instrument available along with an application and protocols like none other in Chiropractic - a task that proved to be a great deal harder (and more expensive) than we ever imagined. Was it all worth it? I think the NeuroInfiniti speaks for itself.

Today we have the largest company in the biofeedback world backing us, a fantastic instrument that supports Neurologically Based Chiropractic and room to grow.