What to expect on your New Patient / Regular Visit
New Patient Visit:
On your New Patient Visit you will be asked to fill out a New Patient Form detailing your current health status and presenting complaint. Please arrive ten minutes early to allow time to complete it. After this, a thorough history will be taken by your Chiropractor and the information you provided on your health history form will be discussed with you.
This will be followed by a comprehensive physical examination, comprising any combination of the following:
- A postural analysis
- Range of motion assessment
- Orthopaedic testing
- Neurological examination
- Chiropractic spinal and extremity (arms and legs) examination
The purpose of this visit is to accurately determine your current health status and to diagnose any presenting complaint. This is likened to putting together the pieces of a jigsaw, some people are 20 piece and others are 1000 piece puzzles! From this, decisions can be made as to whether:
- Chiropractic care can help you*
- Further testing is required e.g X-Rays, Diagnostic Musculo-skeletal Ultra-Sound
- You need to be referred elsewhere
If it is determined that Chiropractic care can help you, there will be a discussion as how the condition will be managed. You and your Chiropractor will discuss:
- Which Techniques will be appropriate in your case*
- Your Care Plan/Schedule
- The Do’s and Don’ts regarding your complaint
- Ergonomic and Lifestyle advice appropriate to your case
Following this, at the discretion of your Chiropractor, appropriate care will usually begin on this visit. This is on a case by case basis.
Please allow 45 minutes for your New Patient Visit.
Regular Visit:
Regular Visits are a follow-up to your New Patient Visit, and usually involve chiropractic adjustments and soft tissue work*. The frequency of your regular visits will have been determined on your New Patient Visit, but will continue to be monitored each time you come in and tailored to your progress and rate of healing.
Generally you would need to allow between 10 -15 minutes per appointment.
Like a regular workout at the gym, each chiropractic visit builds on the previous one. Miss a visit and your body can lose the healing momentum required to have you recover quickly, therefore it is important to follow the recommendations of your Chiropractor. You can’t always tell if you need care solely by how you feel. This is where you need to trust the expertise of your Chiropractor in determining when care is required.
Keeping on time
We recognise that your time is valuable and we do everything possible to run on schedule. Please always aim to arrive at least five minutes early to every Regular Visit and ten minutes early to your New Patient Visit to assist us keeping on time.
*Patient consent is always obtained first before any Chiropractic Techniques are administered.