Network Spinal Analysis™ (NSA) is evidence-based care exclusively practiced by Doctors of Chiropractic, called Network Practitioners. Network Practitioners combine their clinical assessments of spinal refinements with patient’s self-assessments of wellness and their life changes.
Network Practitioners can help you save you from your distress for a period of time. They play that role only for a short period until your nervous system can figure it out on its own. It is fascinating to see how a patient's own body learns to release complex patterns of neural tension and areas of disablement, and once achieved, a further unwinding of deeper neural tension occurs.
Since its inception in 1983 by founder and developer Dr. Donald Epstein, NSA care has evolved from the clinical detection, classification, and reduction of the vertebral subluxation (the basis on which traditional chiropractic was formed) to the present day view as a method promoting new levels of somatic (body) awareness and self-organizing adaptive strategies. This is not a method of care that seeks to remedy any dysfunctional condition or return a person to a previous state of health, rather is about reorganizing one’s self to a higher level.
In a press release from the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (JACM), Editor-in-Chief Dr. Kim Jobst states, “There can be no doubt that we are witnessing the birth of a powerful method of healing, grounded in rigorous scientific fact, that will become integral to future systems of healthcare.” The journal itself states the paper is a “seminal groundbreaking paper”.
Reorganizational Healing (ROH) is an emerging wellness, growth and behavioral change paradigm developed from over 25 years of wisdom, experience and research by Dr. Epstein. ROH takes an approach to help create a map for individuals to self-assess and draw on strengths to create sustainable change. NSA is a spinal application of ROH. In the future, we expect many disciplines using the concepts of ROH. Currently NSA offices are at the forefront of this new paradigm that is sure to garner a lot of attention in the very near future.
The benefits reported by those receiving NSA care include an increased ability to recognize areas of tension and dysfunction within the spinal system, and to employ forces to bring about resolution of the distortion or tension. This process contributes to reorganizational healing and well-being.
NSA is administered in a series of four Levels of Care™, each geared at your ability to detect and dissipate spinal tension and nervous system interference, and to your increased self-awareness and ability to respond to yourself. Helping you to develop an increasing number of coordinated spinal oscillators, called Spinal Gateways™ or “Gates,” these regions of the spine gently rock in synch with one another and advance your progression through the NSA care levels. Integrating your movement, breathing and the way you hold yourself, NSA helps you to be in better touch with our body, knowing its own story and needs, this will help you to know that you truly can reorganize to heal yourself.
The Network Spinal Analysis (NSA) model of spinal and neural integrity considers several "subsystems" which are responsible for creating and maintaining nerve system and spinal integrity.
Each of these subsystems must coordinate function and be able to respond immediately to changing demands placed upon them. If any subsystem is compromised, another will have to take over the slack. For example if a vertebra is injured in an automobile accident, the messages sent to the Control subsystem (nerve system) will tell the Active subsystem (muscles) to contract to protect the area. If the Control subsystem (nerve system) is under mechanical tension (stretched or squeezed) the Passive subsystem (vertebra) and the Active subsystem (muscles) will orchestrate movement of the spinal bones into defence stress patterns, called “structural defence posture.”
Physical, chemical, and emotional stressors, if traumatic, are difficult to deal with. When severe trauma, the emotional brain (limbic system) places a "marker" on these certain experiences. This happens because our cerebral cortex (thinking brain) avoids dealing with this perceived life-threatening experience. Hence, the energy of the trauma continues to circulate throughout the body, without our awareness (or perhaps only partial or distorted awareness) and our posture, body movements, and sensations associated with this certain experience or event, may persist or recur, even though there may be no conscious memory of the event. Dr. Epstein suggests that via the mechanism of the facilitated subluxation, mechanical tension at the spinal level replays the energy of the trauma as the brain avoids full awareness of the event.
The Emotional subsystem is associated with the motion of body tissues and their baseline degree of tension. If there is emotional tension in the body this will be in association with tissue tension (nervous system, connective tissue, muscle, or joint). Dr. Epstein suggests that when there is a change in the motion or tension of any tissue of the body, especially at the spinal level (the switchboard for the body-mind), we experience this as emotion. As your vertebrae begin to move more freely, as your connective tissue releases its tension, and as the mechanical tension is released from the spinal cord and nerves, your body will have the opportunity to release energy that has been stored… this released energy providing fuel for Reorganizational Healing.
Some of the ways in which this Emotional subsystem releases stored tension is through muscle movement which may also move the spine through a greater range of its motion, giving rise to “healing waves.” It may also release emotion through crying, laughing or toning… all natural expressions of sound. We often will make a sound that is similar to the vibration stored within our body as tension. This sound massages the tissues from the inside and appears to facilitate the release of tension. Much of this tension may have been stored as a result of your body-mind reaction to various traumatic situations in your life. A release of emotions is common as tension is resolved. Although the release of emotions may at times be very apparent in this process, it is not specifically what benefits you, but simply a by-product of your increasing wholeness. Network sessions are aimed at advancing your ability to coordinate your body's spinal integrity subsystems. NSA helps you to reintegrate the out-of-phase subsystems, enhancing your brain's ability to recognize and utilize meaningful energetic information for self-healing.
Through Network Spinal Analysis (NSA) care the brain may generate two “healing waves” that are associated with dissipation of energy, enhanced vertebral motion, coordination of the spinal subsystems and enhanced well-being. These are known as the Respiratory and Somatopsychic Waves™.
These wave mechanisms are currently being studied at the University of Southern California to better characterize them, and to evaluate their potential role in the body's reorganization to a higher level. During NSA care your Network Practitioner may position your spine to allow for a more effective redistribution of energy, improved coordination of the spinal integrity subsystems, and an enhancement of full spinal involvement in these "healing waves.”
Healing and transformation are personal, and therefore not competitive. Outward manifestations such as emoting, or large body movements are not indicative of the degree of spinal and nerve system progress or of an individual's enhanced ability to self-correct.
A recent retrospective study performed through the University of California, Irvine College of Medicine of 2,818 patients receiving Network care in the United States and around the world, demonstrated that Network care is associated with profound and statistically significant improvement in self-reported wellness areas. The reported outcomes associated with Network care reflects a large positive clinical effect in every health-related domain investigated. Moreover, there was significant improvement in self-related perceptions of “wellness,” which was positively correlated with length under care. This means that patients who had been under are the longest time reported greater perceived improvement in their wellness. The following categories, with examples from each section, all showed statistically and clinically significant benefits:
| Physical Well-Being | Lifestyle Changes | Emotional & Psychological Well-Being |
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Patients reported:
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Patients reported an increase in:
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Patients experienced:
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| Stress | Life Enjoyment | Overall Quality of Life |
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Patients reported an improvement in:
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Patients experienced:
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Patients experienced improvement in:
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In addition to these categories, there was also a significant increase in health promoting practices and a decrease in health detracting practices.
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A year long longitudinal study of Network care has just been completed. This study was undertaken to test the validity of findings in the retrospective study, as well as to evaluate the association between duration of care and related health benefits. While the data is still undergoing analysis, preliminary findings support the positive benefits retrospectively reported.
Current clinical observations and formal research suggests that Network Spinal Analysis (NSA) care is best characterized as a progression of the Network Phasing System with outcomes regarding (a) enhanced self-awareness of one’s soma, spine, and respiration; (b) adaptive self-regulation of adverse spinal cord tension patterns; (c) enhancement of spinal and neural integrity; and (d) the development of specific emerging properties of the spine and nervous system related to improved wellness and quality of life.
The application of NSA was initially directed toward the correction of two classes of vertebral subluxation, which is described in the Epstein Model of Vertebral Subluxation. Although the application of NSA has now evolved beyond that objective, the Epstein Model is presented, herein, as it has served as a pivotal concept for the divergence of NSA from being limited to subluxation correction to a broader concept.
Ralph Boone, Ph.D., D.C., has served on the consensus panels of all three Standards of Care Documents which have been developed within the chiropractic profession. He has experience with academics and the institutional accreditation process, having been president of a national professional accrediting agency, site visitor for a regional accrediting agency, and a faculty member at both chiropractic colleges and universities.
He has served as President of an American Chiropractic College and Executive Officer for Academics/
Research for the New Zealand School of Chiropractic from 1999 - 2001. He was editor of the peer-reviewed Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research and has authored or co/authored numerous publications.
Dr. Boone has been on several research teams at various academic institutions. In 2000 he visited Seoul, Korea as the Research/Education Director for the World Chiropractic Alliance (WCA), which is a Non-Governmental Organization holding recognition with the U.N. Department of Information (NGO/DPI). During the Seoul International Conference of NGO’s, Dr. Boone presented a discussion session on "The Role of Chiropractic Care in Global Health."
Dr. Boone also serves as Research Director for the Association for Network Care (ANC) and is a Board member of the Council on Chiropractic Practice. He is also involved with international chiropractic education and other allied healing arts.
| From the Desk of W.R. Boone, Ph.D., D.C. | |
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Dr. Donald Epstein, Developer Network Spinal Analysis |
November 14, 2003 |
Dear Dr. Epstein: I have been involved with the evolution of study relative to NSA for approximately 12 years. That time has permitted the accumulation of sufficient data to develop a sophisticated analysis of previous anecdotal reports concerning NSA care. To date, the system of care delivery associated with NSA has been studied from the perspective of its formal documentation, description, retrospective analysis, and longitudinal clinical outcomes. Moreover, its relationship to academic disciplines other than chiropractic has also occurred (notably non-linear systems mathematical analysis, and regression modeling relative to the social sciences). A publication history detailing the findings to date can be supplied. Two other manuscripts deriving information from a population receiving NSA care are in press for publication in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. Outcomes from a longitudinal study of NSA care recipients are currently in preparation for publication submission. All articles published have been subjected to the peer-review process to ensure scientific quality and proper evaluation of the findings. As well, a current model of NSA based on these published findings is available.
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