Health Sphere Wellness Center

Integrative Medicine

Intergrative Medicine is a practice of health care which fosters a cooperative relationship among all those involved. It focuses on education and responsibility for personal efforts to achieve balance and well being. Through this process physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual aspects of health are gained. The integrative approach emphasizes the need to look at the whole person, which includes analysis of physical, nutritional, environmental, emotional, social, spiritual, and lifestyle values.

Natural healing usually refers to the use of non-invasive and non-pharmaceutical techniques helping the patient with the healing process.

Integrative Medicine has been used by millions of people around the world to:

  • Encourage the body toward healing from chronic diseases (arthritis, lupus, back and neck pain, bulged or herniated discs, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, spinal stenosis, slow healing problems, and more)
  • Successfully treat childhood illnesses, birth trauma, developmental delays
  • Treat acute illnesses (fractures, after surgery, accidents, back and neck pain, etc.)
  • Normalize weight
  • Prevent disease (increase the strength of the immune system)
  • Improve overall health and increase energy level

CranioSacral therapy is part of physical therapy and massage therapy practices. It emphasizes the neurological aspects of a patient's condition. The physical therapist uses extremely light touch, the weight of one nickel on the body parts related to cerebral spinal fluid flow. When a patient has a bulged or herniated disc, craniosacral is used as a manual therapy to decrease pain and speed healing. CEU's for physical therapists are provided by these courses. This technique was developed by William Sills and John Upledger over 30 years ago.

Healing Touch is credentialed by the Nurses Association and physical therapists are given CEU's for attendance to these courses as well. This treatment is very light touch as well. It works with the patient, a relaxation technique, help the body switch from "fight or flight" to "relax." Only in the relaxed state can the body begin to attend to pain. Relaxation techniques such as Jacobson Relaxation techniques have been used over 40 years.

At Health Sphere Wellness Center (HSWC), Karen Pryor, PhD, PT, DPT evaluates and gives the patient programs according to what needs are presented. An amazing number of patients had no idea that the food they had eaten, water they drank, or their stress level would have been a factor in the disease process.

HSWC is successful because of using many of the key integrative healing fundamentals. Some individuals get caught up in looking for a magic supplement, herb, or diet macronutrient proportion as their sole form treatment. This method tends to lead to limited success, often followed by long periods of little or no progress. With treatment of the whole individual utilizing a spectrum of techniques, the improvement and pain relief is more successful. Many of the procedures are performed at HSWC clinic and some of the treatment can be done at home.

HSWC spends as much energy establishing what person has a disease as what disease a patient has. Dr. Karen evaluates the patient and establishes what caused the illness or injury along with the symptoms. She designs and presents a specific program to eliminate any causes of diseases and/or pain. Then she uses Physical Therapy with various techniques to reduce pain and discomfort caused by the disease/injury process. Hand in hand, Karen works with the patient to return the body to optimum health and function. Karen also works with the patient's physician, nurse practitioner, and/or other health care providers.

Patients of HSWC are informed every step of their treatment process. Each aspect of treatment is explained and Dr. Karen welcomes the opportunity to answer any questions.