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WELLNESS
A New Perspective	Dr. Gerd Koerber
March 2010 WELLNESS A New Perspective By Dr. Gerd Koerber, D.C. Being the new kid on the block, I am both pleased and chagrinned at the state of health in my new home state of Virginia. While Virginia looks very much like my home country of Germany with its green rolling hills, farms, forests and abundance of water, I am finding the health challenges to be quite different here. I am taken aback by the amount of lifestyle and stress-induced types of health problems I have encountered so far. I am learning the origin is partially due to the sedentary, commuter lifestyle of a large portion of the Fredericksburg population and the spill-over stress of being close to Washington DC. On the other hand, I am pleased that citizens are open to and seeking out holistic and wellness-based forms of healthcare. I also enjoy getting to know the friendly, good-natured people of this town. Maybe it is serendipitous that I have landed here after earning my Doctor of Chiropractic degree from Parker College in Dallas, TX. While honing my skills in the campus clinic and at many extracurricular chiropractic technique seminars, I was developing the skills that will be beneficial to this particular community. Chiropractic alone is very effective in removing spinal misalignments (we call them “subluxations”) that irritate nerves and cause the pain signals you may describe as “my aching back” or “my neck is killing me”. In addition to spinal chiropractic adjusting skills, I have advanced training in chiropractic extremity adjusting -- the treatment and rehabilitation of the joints in the feet, knees, hips, wrists, elbows, shoulders, TMJ, and ribs. Most people don’t think about it, but all parts of the body affect all other parts, and since you stand on your feet, assume that the function of the joints in your feet affects all the other joints in the body. I specialize in Applied Kinesiology. This technique involves muscles of the body telling me which joints are out of alignment. Muscles move joints. Tendons attach muscles to bones, and ligaments attach bones to bones. The cartilage between the bones and the ligaments attaching the bones together make a joint. Applied Kinesiology allows me to treat not only the joint, but also the associated muscles, ligaments and tendons, which we call the “soft tissues” of the body (as opposed to bones, or “hard tissues”). An important component of healthcare is proper posture, the relationship posture has to the function of the joints and muscles, and the resulting pain syndromes from improper muscle and joint function. A lifestyle dominated by desk-work and long commutes with little time for exercise can lead to some serious postural, joint and muscular problems. Do you know the best ways to sit, sleep, read, lift, etc? Most people are doing these incorrectly. Sometimes the difference is subtle, but correcting it can change the way your muscles function and, in the long term, change the way you feel. With consistency and dedication, it is amazing how much better you feel by doing some simple exercises minutes per day. And isn’t that what you really want - to feel good? I would like to answer your health questions from a holistic, natural treatment perspective. There are times when you need traditional medicine to treat an injury or save your life, but problems can be solved non-invasively and safely with natural therapies. Of the top six leading causes of death in America (heart disease, cancer, stroke, respiratory disease, accidents and diabetes), five are vastly influenced and highly preventable by lifestyle changes. I am here to help you make those changes! Dr. Gerd Koerber (pronounced more like Garret) can be reached at gkoerber@whole-health.net or at Whole Health Chiropractic, 434 Bridgewater St., 899-9421.
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