Musculo-Skeletal Assessment

Many practitioners underestimate the profound impact musculo-skeletal problems can have on a person's whole health picture.

Things like bowel function, breathing difficulty, even stress and anxiety can be directly contributed to by misalignments.

Musculo-Skeletal pain and the problems that arise from musculo-skeletal problems are probably one of the most common complaint groups seen by ATI today.

In most cases, people present to us complaining of problems which have been investigated and treated by many different means, but have not been resolved. In many cases like this, we find that the problem area is related to the symptoms, but is not symptomatic itself.

This is one of the strengths of Thermal Imaging. It does not become distracted by what hurts, but objectively looks for why it hurts.

Below, we will introduce some of the more common problems that we see time and again. With each of these images, we have had the findings clinically confirmed so that we have both the thermographic evidence and clinical evidence correlating the findings.

Apart from the more obvious complaints, musculo-skeletal problems often lead to, or at least may contribute strongly to:

* Headaches
* Nerve pain
* Numbness
* Pins and needles
* Digestive complaints
* Vertigo/dizziness
* Breathing problems

Vertebro-Costal Rotations

One of the more common and troublesome problems we see on a regular basis is a situation where one or more vertebrae has twisted or rotated and is effecting the attached ribs.

These scenarios lead to dysfunction in rib mobility which lead to conditions like breathing problems, neck pain, shoulder pain and even pelvic misalignments.

Subject 10 - plain image	Subject 10 - modified image

In these images, Subject Ten has a broad vertebro-costal rotation (VCR). The image on the left is the normal image, and on the right is marked highlighting the patterns which make up the thermal signature of the VCR.

Vertebro-Costal Step Rotations

A vertebro-costal step rotation (VCSR) differs from a normal VCR (above) in that the spine above the rotation is aligned with the top of the rotation, just as the spine below the problem is aligned with the bottom of the rotation. This is what gives the "step" rotation its name.

Subject 11 - posterior hands

Subject 11 - plain image	Subject 11 - modified image

In these images, Subject Eleven has a VCSR effecting the upper portion of the mid chest. The right hand image illustrates the thermal signature of a VCSR. The red dots show the course of the vertebrae, illustrating the nature of the "step". In the image of Subject 11's hands (left), you can see the right hand much cooler than the left, indicating nerve irritation coming from the right neck and shoulder, correlating clearly with the back images.

The symptoms that a VCSR generates are typically very similar to a plain VCR except that they are generally more capable of triggering both localised symptoms AND significant remote problems like pelvic or neck misalignments or dysfunction.

Of the these two types of injury, the VCR is the more likely to be triggering a remote problem but not be triggering a local problem. In other words, if you have a sore neck coming from a VCR, you are less likely to be aware of any problem in your back where the VCR is.

A VCSR is much more likely to have some sort of pain or symptom at its site in the back as well as its remote pain, but this is only a rule of thumb at best.

Subject 12 - plain image	Subject 12 - modified image

Subject Twelve shows a more complex VCSR in the mid back (T6-T7) with a secondary VCSR in the upper back (T1-T2) resulting from the torsion like being forced around a driver's seatbelt during a front impact in a motor vehicle accident. Again, the red dots show the course of the vertebrae, illustrating the nature of the "step".