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| A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Patient Care |
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At the start of 2000, Richard Gerardo, D.C. and Bruce Johnson, D.D.S., began co-treating patients in a new paradigm that joined dental and chiropractic care. The results have been remarkable with treatment based in this paradigm, which considers the body as a whole and each patient as an individual in needs and response. It's not only about treating health issues differently, but about cross diagnosis and seeing patients from a broader perspective.
It's about stepping back from our respective specialty and diagnosing the underlying root causes- not just treating the symptoms. It's about looking at the system with awareness that the symptoms the patient feels are a result of compensations that are normal, common, and inherent. The body's systems are constantly compensating or reacting to each other.
Fundamental to this connection is the understanding of postural mechanisms, which is the Chiropractor's realm, and how they apply to the functioning of the jaws, which is the Dentist's realm. Connecting these two has resulted in the understanding that jaw posture affects head posture on the neck. It then follows that if you have poor jaw posture, like an excessive overbite, it is going to adversely affect the neck muscles by forcing them to compensate for the poor head posture. If and when the neck muscles can no longer handle the stress, shoulder and upper back muscles are recruited to support the poor posture. As more and more compensation occurs, more problems develop further and further down the spine.
This ability the body has to compensate is what really gets us into trouble, because only when the compensation hits an endpoint, like the lower back, where there is no further compensation capability left, do we develop pain.
Interweaving their knowledge, experience, and expertise, Dr. Johnson and Dr. Gerardo offer treatment that focuses on what is appropriate for the condition and the individual, and affects optimal health throughout the body.
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Why Dental-Chiropractic Co-Treatment Is Important
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Airway affects oral posture, development of the occlusion, and head posture. When any or all are adversely changed, chain of events (compensation patterns) develop that stress postural components. Ie: poor head posture leads to poor neck posture, which leads to poor upper back and shoulder posture, which leads to poor middle and lower back posture, etc. Likewise, poor lower extremity posture (flat feet) leads to poor hip posture which leads to poor lower back posture, which ascends up the back and ends in the head. It's the reason lower back pain can be cured by changing jaw posture and headaches can be cured by correcting feet or stabilizing the pelvic girdle. As some people have both ascending and descending problems, they will never achieve complete relief and stability if only one issue is addressed.
Identifying the source and direction of a health issue allows the practitioner to assist the patient in treatment which will address the cause, not just treat the symptoms. This may result in referral to another practitioner who can provide the necessary treatment.
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Integrative Wholistic Therapy
| What is Integrative Wholistic Therapy?
Integrative Wholistic Therapy approaches treatment in an "out of the box" perspective. When health care professionals complete their training, the model they focus on is relative to their respective area of health care. For example, the dentist treats teeth, the chiropractor treats structure, the ENT treats the ear, nose, and throat, etc. etc. These professionals are trained and conditioned to treat these areas of the body without consideration of the systems and aspects going on throughout the rest of the body.
With Integrative Wholistic Therapy, the body on whole is considered. The dentist realizes that the dental system is part of a greater system, directly impacts and is impacted by the other systems in the body, and is intimately connected to the structure of the body. The chiropractor realizes that the structure of the body is part of the entire system, and directly impacts and is impacted by the other systems of the body, and is initimately connected to the dental system.
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How did Dr. Gerardo and Dr. Johnson come together?
Despite the long detailed history of this, we have found a way to briefly summarize how Dr. Gerardo and Dr. Johnson both came to this paradigm. Bear in mind that two separate complete biographies would be necessary to truly detail how these two practitioners came together.
Over the course of years and years of practice, both Dr. Johnson and Dr. Gerardo realized that something was missing in the treatment models they were trained to practice, and that the results yielded were at times less than the best. For example, Dr. Gerardo could provide considerable relief for people with head, neck, and back pain, but struggled to make the relief last very long. On the other end of this spectrum, Dr. Johnson struggled in providing a stable bite, and therefore a stable end result to treatment of orthodontic and TMJ dilemas.
When Dr. Gerardo went in search of the underlying reasons for short-term relief as opposed to resolution, he began to explore the impact of the dental system. Dr. Johnson reached beyond the mouth and jaws to observe the link to the rest of the body, starting at the head and neck.
Along came the concept of combining dental and chiropractic principles. Dr. Gerardo went in search of a dentist to join him in the exploration of this new treatment paradigm. It was through a mutually known practitioner that he acquired the name Dr. Bruce Johnson, "a dentist in Eagle Rock doing some stuff like that". This casual conversation led them to co-treatment through Integrative Wholistic Therapy.
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Community and Collaboration
A key principle of our paradigm is community and collaboration. We don't claim to have all the answers, and it goes beyond arrogance to do so. Our goal is not to find, but to continue in the pursuit and ensure the pursuit continues after we are gone. We work toward a greater purpose, but strive to make a difference today.
We want to acknowledge those who have gone before us and paved the way for this paradigm. Without their contribution, we would remain in the midnight, but instead they have led us into the dawn. Our commitment is to strive for the broad daylight ahead, to push on boldy, even under the darkest clouds of doubt, scrutiny, and criticism.
Community and collaboration are best seen in referrals, professional consultations, study groups, classes and seminars. In these ways, practitioners absorb, explore, share information, experiences, and observations.
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Practicing Integrative Wholistic Therapy
Practitioners involved in Integrative Wholistic Therapy provide treatment according to their discipline but with respect to the "big picture". They are cross-educated about the parts and systems of the body in order to assess the underlying root causes of health issues. The intricacy of the human body is a primary reason for so many varied disciplines.
In respect of this intricate vehicle, "whole body" pracitioners rely on a network of care providers and allow for the individuality of every patient's own path of health. The most common mistake a practitioner can make is in believing that they have "arrived". Health and healing of the body is an ever evolving process.
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In this paradigm, it is especially important to differentiate between child/adolescent patients and adult patients. Why? Because the adolescent patient is still in the growth and development stage of life, whereas the adult patient is grown and has developed.
In this day and age, growth and developement is a compromised stage of life. The ability for a child to properly grow and develop is such a challenge that we must look to correct the distortions and counter-act the influences that cause them.
As an adult, the body has spent years compensating for improper growth and development. It is this mechanism that truly gets us into trouble because it is only when compensation reaches an endpoint that we develop pain and recognize a problem
In either case, we must address the underlying root causes which affect health distortions as well as the distortions themselves. Treating the symptoms will never yield desired results because what's causing them is still unresolved.
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Basic Principles of Integrative Wholistic Therapy |
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Our goal is to prevent, inhibit, or reverse health distortions. |
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To do so requires understanding growth, environmental influences, cranial motion, SOT, airway influences, compensation patterns, and more.
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A vision of “what nature intended” for each individual.
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Airway compromise is the biggest villain, yet least acknowledged, diagnosed, and treated.
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The definition of prevention is an action or actions taken to stop something from happening. We all take "preventative" steps everyday because we are educated as to what causes the result we are trying to avoid. But prevention in regards to Integrative Wholistic Therapy can also be considered actions taken to influence something to occur. This something is proper growth and development in the adolescent patient, and proper function in the adult patient.
Rarely are we looking at the patient's treatment in terms of primarily preventative as an adult. Again, this is because improper growth and development have already occurred. If it sounds like we are assuming all human beings are growing and developing improperly (or not as 'nature intended'), we are. For an understanding of why, refer to the work of Weston Price.
Therefore in the adult patient we are first looking at inhibiting the process of developing health distortions and reversing those which have already occurred.
Referenced in the work of such sources as John Mew, "the Headgear Effect" is a term Dr. Gerardo has been using for the past several years after joining forces with Dr. Johnson and grasping a firm understanding of orthodontic concepts. Though derived from the well-known orthodontic method of headgear, the term "headgear effect" describes a health distortion.
The purpose of any treatment is to meet certain goals. In this treatment paradigm, these goals are relative to the overall health of the body. In more conventional or traditional paradigms, treatment goals are relative to the discipline (dentistry, chiropractics, etc.).
In order to set goals relative to the overall health of the body, the practitioner must know what a healthy body looks like. More than knowing what it looks like, an understanding of what makes it a healthy body is necessary. Once the practitioner understands this, they can begin to explore what causes health distortions, and what these distortions look like and recognize patterns.
So how do we know what nature intended? Through observations, anecdotal evidence, clinical studies, and research. Here again we must credit our predecessors and colleagues, the pioneers of the paradigm.
The big bad wolf disguised as.... the invisible man??? We make this reference because airway compromise is literally so underdiagnosed that most patients are functioning at a severe compromise before a problem is recognized.
| Dr. Richard Gerardo |
Dr. Bruce Johnson |
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Dr. Gerardo attended Cleveland Chiropractic College in Los Angeles. He acquired his chiropractic license and began practice in 1985. He has enhanced his treatment through integration of his certifications in SOT, Craniopathy, and Nutrition. His continued pursuit of a paradigm that considered the whole body led him to contact and begin collaborating with Dr. Johnson. Learn more about Dr. Gerardo...
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Dr. Johnson began practicing family dentistry in 1976 after graduating the University of California San Francisco school of Dentistry. He began widening his view of treatment to explore a more comprehensive approach to treating patients, which included orthodontic and TMJ/CMD treatment. This led him to the whole body paradigm and to collaboration with Dr. Gerardo. Learn more about Dr. Johnson...
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