Many of you who have experienced physical therapy at my facility know that I utilize movements of the eyes in my treatment and exercise programs. Most of you, I am sure are wondering why. Well, hopefully this article will answer those questions.
One of the things that I learned while competing in the sport of nordic ski jumping for 23 years was the importance of the eyes in the performance of that athletic skill. As the years have passed while working in my profession, I learned more and more about the fact that the neck, eyes, and ears work together to affect the performance of the body no matter the skill performed. Throughout our daily activities of life, the neck, eyes, and ears are integrated together to create skeletal balance and stability allowing us to perform those activities most of us take for granted.
Many of you have seen an “orthogonal chiropractor” like Dr. Russo in treatment of your musculoskeletal symptoms. This atlas chiropractic technique is a speciality within the chiropractic profession. This technique focuses in on the alignment of the atlas, the first cervical vertebra and its alignment with the occiput at the base of the head. In fact, the atlas is a 2 oz. vertebra at the top of the spine in which your head sits on.
When the atlas is misaligned, it creates “disorder” within the human central nervous system (CNS) made up of the brain and spinal cord. On top of that, it affects the vertebral artery which brings approximately 75% of the brain’s blood supply as well as causing irritation to vital nerves such as the vagus and suboccipital nerves. The result is compensation by the body’s neuromuscular and fascial systems leading to an imbalance of neuromuscular and myofascial tension on the spine and extremities that alters the communication between the outer physical world, the body, and CNS from the ideal.
I mentioned the cervical spine first because of how it is shaped and created, both from a muscular and skeletal perspective and its intimate relationship to the eyes and the inner ear. The nerve endings in the neck talk to the “vestibular” system which talks to the eyes.
The vestibular system is the part of your inner ear and nervous system that creates skeletal balance and equilibrium against the force of gravity and ground reaction force. It is located on both sides of the skull within the temporal bones.
When the atlas is out alignment, it affects the input and output from the vestibular system creating the tone of the body’s muscles producing skeletal balance and equilibrium that results in disorder within the CNS.
The tone of the bodys’ muscles then puts tension on the myofascia which is the connective tissue enscapsulating the muscle tissue. It also puts tension body’s fascial net or network that runs from the top of your head with anchoring points at the palms of the hands and plantar fascia of the feet. Since this fascial network runs through the body’s center of gravity (COG), a resultant imbalance of muscle tension will affect the position and motion of the body’s isolated joints as well as its COG causing compensation in the position and motion of your skeletal structure.
Our skeletal structure is three dimensional having three cardinal planes including the sagittal, frontal, and transverse. When I evaluate your structure, I first look at the frontal plane, the plane parallel with the ground because it establishes what you perceive as vertical and is foundational in the position and motion of your skeletal structure.
When the body is at rest in this plane sitting, standing, lying supine or prone, your skeletal structure should be symmetrical having the right and left sides appear as mirror images of each other. Looking at your occiput (base of head), shoulder girdles, and pelvic girdle while sitting and standing, an imaginary line that connects your right and left sides of the body should ideally be parallel to the floor Also, the “line of gravity” an imaginary line from the from body’s hypothetical COG to the ground or surface sitting should create a perpendicular line.
In the frontal plane, the otoliths of the body’s vestibular system are facilitated. The otolith organs sense gravity and linear acceleration with movement in a straight line. These otolith organs sense position and motion of your structure according to their orientation. The otoliths are calcium carbonate stones that change with the position and motion of your head in the frontal plane both horizontally and vertically (gravity).
These otolith organs, the utricle and saccule, are located in the inner ear on both sides of the body within the temporal bones of the cranium. The utricle is positioned horizontally and largely registers positions and motions acting in the horizontal (parallel with ground) while the saccule is largely vertical and registers accelerations in the vertical plane (gravity).
Within the inner ear there are also three semicircular canals. These canals are known by their orientation: anterior, posterior (the longest), and lateral. They consist of three ducts arranged on three perpendicular planes, with each duct looping back at different angles so that they are situated at right angles from each other similar to the way three sides of a box come together at a corner. The semicircular canals are filled with fluid called endolymph and when the head moves, the fluid inside the canals move too. They are responsible for our sensation of rotational positions and motions in the transverse plane.
It is the connection between the eyes and vestibular system that stabilizes the gaze of our eyes during head movements by the “vestibular-ocular reflex” (VOR). This reflex stabilizes images from the eyes on the retina during head movements. It does this by producing eye movements in the direction opposite of the head position and motion. Without the VOR when walking down the street, it would be impossible to read road signs or even recognize faces of people you meet. The VOR responds to both rotation and horizontal positions and motions of the head.
Hopefully, this short and informative article explains the importance of eye movements in your treatment program at my facility. In addition, I have found throughout the years that these eye movements enhance the training effect of the exercises I give you because they help to change the nervous system at a deeper level. I feel it changes the imprint on your nervous system due to your postural and movement habits and behaviors from the time you learned to become vertical against gravity. As a side note, these eye movements also have an affect on the tone of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems or the autonomic nervous system. I have found it can diminish the tone of the sympathetic system which is better known as the fight or flight system (stress) and increase the tone of the parasympathetic nervous system known for its relaxing qualities.
Therefore, I have recently been using an eye patch over your dominant eye that I find you use for the posture and movements of your body during treatment. In addition, I may use “pinhole” glasses that are used to help improve refractive errors in the eye improving their focus because they shield the eyes from indirect rays of light that commonly distort your vision. This limits the efforts by the extraocular eye muscles resulting in a dramatic, consequential relaxing effect as well as increasing the tone of the parasympathetic nervous system.
In closing, I want to inform you that I am now open Monday through Thursday from 8-5 taking my last client at 5 pm. I still require you to wear a mask upon entering my facility and during treatment due to the pandemic. If you have any additional questions, regarding this article or about your treatment, please contact me at kernterry7@gmail.com. Thank you.
Terry