Pediatric Care

Ohio Valley Optimal Healthcare is a family-focused practice that is dedicated to providing care from infancy into your child’s teenage years and beyond. Gentle chiropractic care is occasionally more effective than traditional medicine for your child’s chronic neck/back pain among other ailments. Headaches, earaches, and sleep disorders also tend to respond well to regular spinal adjustments.  

Is your child at risk for injury?

Many children play sports and it is a healthy experience to help them develop their motor skills. Unfortunately they can also get hurt. In recent years the level of competition in high school athletics has dramatically increased and with this new level of competition has come an increase in the number of injuries, which are not only painful, but can cause a negative impact on grades, attitude, health, and potential scholarships. Once an injury has occurred, a lot can be done to rehabilitate the athlete, but it will most likely take them out of the game for 4-6 weeks.

Problems our young athletes face

All student athletes must go through a medical exam before the season begins — which evaluates eyes, ears, nose, and throat — but sports injuries involve joints, muscles, and tendons and no one is looking at these areas or the bio-mechanics of these kids. Most imbalances originate in the feet and compensatory imbalances occur up the entire kinetic chain. So  once you add athletic activity to an imbalanced structure, injury will soon follow. In every high school around the country, young kids are in weight rooms with no qualified supervision. Strength coaches of professional sports teams use a conditioning pyramid that tests their players in six different categories (anaerobic capacity, body composition, joint mobility, strength endurance, core strength, and aerobic capacity), and the athlete had to pass these six tests before they could even enter the weight room.  Osteoarthritis is a growth industry in this country, and with kids working out in weight rooms and training harder than ever before — along with no one ever looking at their bio-mechanics — they become candidates to have broken down joints much earlier in life. The misconception that if it doesn’t hurt, it must be okay.

How we can help

The misconception is that younger people don’t need to be concerned about spinal care. That is like saying dental care is only for adults when you start to have problems with your teeth. THE SOLUTION:  All athletes should have a bio-mechanical exam, even in the absence of symptoms. Dr. Matthew Nardone and the staff at Nardone Chiropractic are qualified to correct spinal and joint misalignment and balance muscle function.

Bottom line: if your child plays sports, watch them carefully for potential injuries and listen to their complaints- even ask them how they are feeling. This group is the future of our community and as adults, we are charged with keeping them healthy as they grow. If you believe your child can benefit from a bio-mechanical evaluation, give Nardone Chiropractic a call today!