I have patients ask me what it looks like when I adjust. They hear me working at it and feel a light touch behind the ear, but what is going on?
The physics of force generation and transmission is going on...that's what. In the case of the highly refined NUCCA procedure, the force is produced by a complex lever mechanism (simple!) which involves the doctor's legs, arms, back, shoulders and hands all locked in a particular way. To keep it simple, when the shoulders are pulled together (by contracting the long head of the triceps muscle at its origin) force is generated that moves in the direction of the hands. There are some subtleties that are important to get the force to come straight out and not go off at an angle. If the hand is contacting the edge of the atlas at the correct vector (established through radiographic analysis) then the misaligned system will move back to alignment.
...and our patients turn the corner and begin healing...