Chiropractic Help After An Injury At Work

Chiropractic Help After Injury at Work

If you have been injured while at work you may be able to receive workers compensation. Workers compensation was put into action in order to help employees if they happened to get hurt while conducting a job related task. In exchange for not suing the company, workers compensation provided wage replacement benefits, vocational rehabilitation and medical treatment. One of the common injuries acquired while on the job are back related issues. If you have been experiencing neck or back problems because of work, a skilled chiropractor may be able to relieve some of that pain.

Understanding Chiropractic Practices

Chiropractors know how to use hands-on spinal manipulation to help align the body’s musculoskeletal structure. Adjusting and aligning the spine helps enable the body to heal itself without the need of invasive surgery or medication. If you fell while at work or lifted heavy objects that caused the back pain, workers compensation may be able to cover the expenses of seeing a chiropractor. When your back is injured, you may experience different levels of pain ranging from aches to sharp pain. The goal of chiropractic therapy is to provide an alternative to surgery that still offers pain relief for the bones, connective tissue, muscles and joints. This pain relief is accomplished by the reduction of pressure being placed on the central nervous system.

What to Expect When Seeing a Chiropractor

Typically, your first visit will involve an evaluation and you may be asked to describe your symptoms or what may have caused this pain. Sometimes the chiropractor may order tests and X-rays to help them better understand your condition. Once the evaluation is complete, a treatment plan will be developed. Pain management can take some time and it is recommended that you schedule several appointments over a specific period of time.

The appointments may vary in the type of pressure that is used on your back. Sometime the pressure may be abrupt or could be low in force. Sometimes, only hands are used or other times a specially designed instrument may be implemented. When developing the treatment plan, you may be given the option of adding:

• Massages
• Electrical stimulation
• Hot and cold packs
• Nutritional supplements
• Therapeutic Exercises

Speak with your chiropractor ahead of time to develop the treatment plan you’d like. The chiropractor may also suggest a change in diet and recommend some physical activity.

Getting Pain Relief

If you were hurt while at work, you may be nervous about what the future holds. Many people receive back related injuries while at work from either lifting heavy objects, slipping, falling, repetitive movements, even inactivity can cause back pain. Chiropractors understand how hindering back pain can be for your daily life. Reach out to a workers compensation lawyer Washington, D.C., residents trust as well as a chiropractor to get the help you need for your injuries.

Thanks to our friends and contributors from Cohen & Cohen, P.C., for their insight into chiropractic care after a work injury.

Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab Adds New Medical Marketing Liaison – Meet Taylor Bradshaw

As my avid blog followers are already aware, I am a Baltimore Chiropractor with 5 chiropractic/rehab clinics in and around metro Baltimore. We have offices in Northwest Baltimore, Southwest Baltimore/Catonsville, Southeast Baltimore, Dundalk and Glen Burnie. In addition to treating Baltimore car accident and Baltimore worker’s compensation patients, each office is also in network with numerous health insurance companies. That is, each office accepts patients without acute traumatic injuries. We treat everyone with headaches, neck pain and back pain. In an effort to keep up with the growing demands of our rapidly expanding clinic, Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab added a new medical marketing liaison.

Taylor Bradshaw joined the team in order to lead the sales and marketing efforts in the medical referral community. Prior to working with Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab, Taylor was a medical liaison for the largest pain management group on the East Coast, working alongside five centers in the Baltimore and DC Metropolitan areas. She helped to grow and to sustain valuable relationships with medical practices ranging from primary and urgent care centers, to orthopedic surgeons and hospital systems alike. Taylor’s role as the medical marketing liaison with Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab is to share the benefits of chiropractic care with medical physicians and staff by educating them on the therapeutic, holistic and medical treatment options that we provide for their patients. This message is ever so important right now, given the current opioid epidemic, as Chiropractic care is a drug-free hands-on approach to pain management.

Taylor graduated from Towson University in 2013 with a degree in Public Relations and Advertising. She currently lives in Canton with her adorable rescue Dog, Camden. She enjoys the Baltimore City night life, playing on a kickball team with friends and enjoying the beach on weekends with her family.

So if you see her around the neighborhood, please say hello and welcome Taylor to the Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab family. We’re sure she will be a great addition to the team and we are excited to have her on board.

Dr. Gulitz

Baltimore Metro Area Determined to be Least Safe Metro Area to Drive in United States

As my avid blog followers are already aware, I am a Baltimore Chiropractor with 5 Chiropractic clinics in metro Baltimore, MD. We now offer clinics in Downtown Baltimore City (Fells Point), Northwest Baltimore City (Upper Park Heights Ave.), Southwest Baltimore (Catonsville), Dundalk (North Point Blvd), and Glen Burnie (Baltimore Annapolis Blvd.). What the Chiropractors of Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic know and what Allstate recently confirmed is of no surprise to us – that Baltimore metro is the home of the worst drivers in the United States.

Allstate released its most recent Best Driver’s Report. It gathers data each year from over 200 metro areas across the U.S. in order to compare how many years take place between crashes, the relative crash likelihood compared to other ciities, and the number of hard breaking incidents per 1000 miles. Again, as a shock to no one, Baltimore metro ranked dead last in all of the categories. This earns Baltimore metro the dubious honor of being the least safe metro area in which to drive according to Allstate. Let’s look at the statistics: According to Allstate claimants in Baltimore report a claim every 3.8 years (most frequent in the nation) and are 163.2 percent more likely to get into a crash when compared to the national average. Baltimore driver’s also record 29.3 hard breaking incidents (slamming on breaks) per 1000 miles. But we didn’t need to see the data to know the truth: Anyone who drives on 695 knows traffic is always backed up due to an accident.

So let’s look at which cities/metro areas round out the bottom 5:

#196. Glendale California
#197. Worcester, Massachussetts
#198. Washington, DC (which makes Baltimore worse, given that this is almost in the same metro area that we are.
#199. Boston, Massachussetts
#200. Baltimore, MD

And where might be the safest places to drive according to Allstate?

#5. Madison, Wisconsin.
#4. Huntsville, Alabama.
#3. Boise, Idaho.
#2. Kansas City, Kansas
#1. Brownsville, Texas (13.6 years between claims, 26.3% less likely to have a crash compared to national average).

So what does this data tells us that we didn’t already know about Baltimore and Washington, DC? Nothing if you ask me. But then again my team and I at Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic treat auto accident injuries such as headaches, neck pain, and back pain everyday. And we take injured patients and get them back to normal as quickly as possible so that they can return to their normal lives.

If you, or someone you know, has been injured as a result of a Baltimore, Catonsville, Dundalk, or Glen Burnie auto accident, please contact Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic at (443) 842-5500. We’ve got your back on the road to recovery.

Dr. Gulitz

Enhanced Underinsured Motorist Coverage

As my avid blog followers are already aware, I am a Baltimore Chiropractor with five Baltimore Chiropractic clinics. We offer chiropractic services in Baltimore City, Catonsville, Dundalk, and Glen Burnie. We routinely treat patients with headaches, neck pain, back pain, and arm and leg pain. We use drug-free conservative measures to rehab acute injuries. Many of our patients present to us with acute whiplash pain, from having been rear-ended in Baltimore automobile accidents. We also see a lot of patients who are injured while working and require acute rehabilitation to help get them back to work. And even “regular people” and “weekend warriors” with occasional aches and pains utilize our chiropractic care and rehab services to help with their pains in order to maintain their quality of life.

As a clinic that spends a lot of our time treating acute whiplash patients who suffer with headaches, neck pain, and back pain following Baltimore auto accidents, any time there is a new law that impacts this segment of the population it tends to pique my interest. As recently as July 1, 2018 the Maryland General Assembly enacted a new law meant to to deal with automobile insurance coverage. The law mandates that auto insurers now offer “enhanced underinsurance motorist coverage” or “EUIM” coverage.

Prior to the new law, if someone was injured as a result of the negligence of another driver, they would be entitled to recover monies up to the policy limits of the adverse driver in addition to any Underinsured Motorist Coverage that they carried on their own policy. This presumes that the injuries suffered were enough to warrant the full policy limits, which in many cases, they are not. However, the amount that the injured party collected from the adverse driver’s insurance company would be subtracted out from their UIM coverage.

By way of example: Lets say an injured party is struck by a driver who had a 30k limit policy. Unfortunately for our example they suffered 150k worth of damage/injury/lost wages/pain and suffering. This person could only collect maximimally 30k from the adverse insurance and 70k from their own UIM coverage. Both insurances would be “off the hook” with 100k in policy limits tendered. The injured patient would be “short 50k” and this would go uncompensated.

As a result of the law change, EUIM coverage, if purchased, now allows for policies to be stacked whereby you can now ADD or STACK the coverage amounts when recovering as an injured party. Using the same example, a patient with 150k worth of damage can now recover 30k from the injured party and the full 100k from their own EUIM policy, bringing their total compensation to 130k, a significant amount more than the 100k they were able to recover in the first example.

In short, the new EUIM policy laws allows for injured parties and/or their legal representatives to “stack” liability and EUIM claims in order to recover more. Having treated auto accident injury patients for years in Las Vegas, NV and Baltimore, MD I can attest that most patients don’t think about auto insurance policy limits until after they’ve been injured. In the vast majority of cases, they determine that in an effort to save money they do not have access to necessary coverage for their injuries, and it is usually too late. We use this time to educate them on the coverage that they should speak to their insurance brokers about should they need it again in the future.

It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway. I am not licensed to sell automobile insurance in Maryland. Nor am I a personal injury attorney in Maryland. I am not attempting to give legal advice or insurance advice. I am just looking to educate our followers on how available and affordable this new EUIM coverage is. I recently added it to my policy and to my wife’s policy and it added about 10 dollars a month total. To me, the additional premium of $120 per year makes me feel much safer on the road should the worst happen and should one of us become injured.

If you have questions about the new EUIM law and how it applies to you, you should contact your auto insurance broker. If you have suffered headaches, neck pain, back pain, or whiplash, you should contact Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic at (443) 842-5500. We have your back on the road to recovery.

Dr. Gulitz

Summary Of Treatments at Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic

As my avid blog followers are already aware, I am a Baltimore Chiropractor with now five clinics in Metropolitan Baltimore. In addition to clinics in Northwest Baltimore (Park Heights Avenue) and Downtown Baltimore (Fells Point, Eastern Avenue), we also have clinics on Wilkens Avenue (Catonsville), Dundalk (North Point Blvd.), and in Glen Burnie (Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard). Some of the questions that keep coming up when I meet prospective patients is – what is a Chiropractor? What services do you provide in your clinics? Can you help me and my particular situation?

It made me realize that it was probably time to come up with a blog post that deals with specifically all of the therapeutic services that we provide. That way they are all located in one place and if anyone has any specific questions about a particular procedure they can ask me. So in no particular order here is a summary of the therapeutic procedures that my clinics provide:

• Initial Evaluation:

During your first visit you will receive an initial evaluation in order to determine the treatment plan that best suits your individual needs. This evaluation will include a complete history, physical examination of presenting musculoskeletal symptoms, range of motion evaluation, orthopedic evaluation, neurological examination, chiropractic examination, and x-ray evaluation if clinically indicated. At the end of the initial evaluation we will have determined your working diagnosis (what is wrong), prognosis (how likely you are to make a complete recovery), and treatment plan (what we intend to do to help you get back to normal).

• Re-Evaluation:

You will undergo a periodic re-evaluation of your condition approximately every 10-12 visits, or every 4 weeks, whichever occurs first. We will assess how well you are responding to treatment and we will make future treatment recommendations at that time. Those recommendations may include referrals for advanced imaging or for co-treatment with other specialists such as orthopedists or pain management doctors, depending on your response to treatment up to that point in care.

• Final Evaluation:

All good things must come to an end. Once it is determined that you have reached Maximum Medical Improvement (MMI) for your injuries a final evaluation will be performed. During the final evaluation your provider will determine what subjective complaints you have remaining. We will perform repeat physical evaluations, range of motion evaluations, and orthopedic evaluations. You will be released from our care with instructions on what to do if your pain or symptoms return.

• Moist Heat Packs:

One or more moist heat packs are wrapped in several layers of towel and placed on the area of complaint. Moist heat promotes healing by improving circulation. This allows muscles to become more elastic giving relief from muscle tension and spasms.

• Cold Packs:

One or more cold packs are wrapped in a towel and placed on the area of complaint. Cold packs reduce inflammation and swelling that occur following an injury.

• Electrical Muscle Stimulation:

Electrodes are placed on the skin by a professional who increases the muscle stimulation to the patient’s tolerance. This therapy improves circulation and decreases inflammation treating muscle pain and spasm. The electric muscle stimulation therapy also helps to “trick the brain” by overriding its pain signals with low voltage, thus helping reduce pain.

• Mechanical Traction Table (Roller Table):

Patient is placed face up on an intersegmental traction table while a mechanism applies pressure to different regions of the spine. This therapy induces passive motion to the spinal joints thus increasing the flexibility of the spine and promoting healing. Each joint segment (where two spinal vertebrae connect) is stretched using the patient’s body weight and a rolling lever to passively separate joint articulations one-by-one from the neck all the way to the lower back.

• Ultrasound:

Professional applies the ultrasound using an applicator and a water-based gel to the area of complaint. Ultrasound generates heat using sound waves that can penetrate deeper into the musculature then a moist heat pack. This form of deep heat increases blood flow and promotes healing. This treatment is used very commonly with swollen joints to help reduce joint swelling (edema). We often also use ultrasound on very bony joints (i.e. wrists, hands, ankles, feet) where the application of heat may be less appropriate.

• Therapeutic Exercises:

Professional will instruct the patient on various exercises to be performed. The professional will increase the duration, repetitions and difficulty depending on individual patient need. This type of exercise helps to increase range of motion and promotes muscle healing. It also facilitates the patients return normal activities of daily living. Therapeutic exercises can be performed either in an individual (one-on-one) or group setting.

• Massage Therapy:

The chiropractor will use his/her hands and/or a series of tools that uses vibration to massage the tissues that require treatment. This therapy causes relaxation of the muscles, increased blood flow and softens muscle adhesions promoting healing of the injured areas. Massage therapy is directed to the soft tissues (muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc.) rather than to the spinal joints.

• Manual Therapy:

The chiropractor will use his/her hands or a series of tools to apply focused pressure to stretch tight and tender muscle fibers. This procedure includes manual traction therapy and myofascial release treatment. The goal of this treatment is to increase a pain free range of motion and to facilitate a return to functional activities. Manual therapy is directed to the soft tissues (muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc.) rather than to the spinal joints.

• Chiropractic Spinal Manipulation Therapy:

The chiropractor will use his/her hands or an adjusting instrument to impart a controlled force to a joint resulting in mobilization or manipulation of that joint. Inducing motion into a joint increases range of motion and improves tissue circulation promoting healing. Chiropractic manipulation ranges in intensity from spinal mobilization (passively moving joints to their end range of motion as performed by a Chiropractor’s hands), to instrument assisted mobilization (using tools to tap the vertebrae to induce spinal motion), to drop techniques (utilizing momentum from a table to drop out beneath a joint) to high velocity low amplitude spinal manipulation (the traditional joint manipulation most people associate with chiropractic manipulation). It is very important to note that not all patients have spinal conditions which indicate traditional spinal manipulation, and as such, the providers may need to utilize alternative and less invasive techniques to impart the desired spinal mobilization/manipulation indicated for a particular patient. In short, we will impart spinal mobilization/manipulation beginning will less invasive and working towards more invasive techniques as clinically indicated and as tolerated.

I recognize that this is a fairly long list. So if you require further explanation let us know and one of the many chiropractors and support staff at Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic would be happy to help you.

Dr. Gulitz