First-time visitors to Dr. Guy Riekeman’s newly minted Chiropractic Lifestyle Studios (CLS) in Royal Oak may think they wandered into a contemporary art studio or an upscale Starbucks — not their local chiropractor’s office. Sleek design and warm, embracing lighting exudes an artsy vibe that belies a space where practitioners and patients can focus on exploration, self-education, and the art of living a healthy lifestyle.
If your idea of chiropractic care conjures up an image of getting your back “cracked,” think again. Patients seek out chiropractors for everything from asthma and allergies to ADD, brain fog, and neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s to pinched nerves, injured muscles and ligaments and sciatica. Good chiropractic care draws from a whole gamut of lifestyle considerations that play a huge role in good health. Still, it all begins with the scientific understanding that the nervous system is the body's command center.
“You are your nervous system,” Riekeman says. The spinal cord and nerves are the main conduit to everything and every organ in your body, including the immune system. Therefore, interference to the nervous system can result in body malfunction, disease and reduced quality of life. Chiropractic (meaning “done by hand”) utilizes spinal adjustments to create proper spinal function to vastly improve nervous system function and overall health.
The culmination of a career spanning close to 50 years, Dr. Guy Riekeman has founded CLS to provide the best of natural drug-free health care and lifestyle behaviors. With an emphasis on technological innovation, science-based non-invasive treatment and a patient-centered approach, Riekeman’s primary focus is chiropractic care that will create a healthy lifestyle. In addition to the highest level of technology, patients will also find neuromuscular reintegration machines and specialized adjusting tables. It is one of only 25 such centers in the world.
CLS uses available research, with an equal emphasis on the art of practice by the doctor and the patient’s clinical experience and results. Working within the principles of Disney Management, Riekeman makes sure his patients are active participants in their care plans. “We get our patient’s OK, and then we move forward. No sales, no pressure. It’s a partnership here,” he says. Riekeman has spent his entire career educating and empowering patients to make their own healthcare decisions.
CLS encourages patients to take advantage of the studio's app, MLIQ (My Lifestyle iQ), which supports patient lifestyle goals such as weight control, diet, exercise, mindfulness, brain health and stress management.
While Riekeman is the director of Chiropractic Lifestyle Studios, patients can book sessions with Dr. Wes Paten, a graduate of Life University in Marietta, Ga. Specializing in holistic health care, he focuses on the patient's physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, intellectual, social and environmental health. He cares for everyone from babies to seniors to pregnant women and athletes.
“Back in 1977, I created a patient education system while managing thousands of chiropractic clinics,” Riekeman says. He served as president and chancellor of Palmer Chiropractic College in Iowa, then held the same titles at Life University, the largest single-campus chiropractic college in the world, in Atlanta, Ga. "There, I saw unique cases of severe brain and nervous system damage which showed remarkable improvement based on the science of neuroplasticity [the brain’s ability to change and adapt].”
Riekeman recounts a case in point, in 2012, where Sydney Crosby, then captain of the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins, suffered a neck/head injury — a vestibular concussion to be exact — taking him off the ice, forever. The brain concussion and spinal injury, known as a subluxation, impacted his proprioception — where his body was in space: how he experienced movement, senses and balance. Yet, through a combination of chiropractic care and applied functional neurology, he was back on the ice in weeks.
“We bring that brain trust of research and knowledge into our studio and make it available to our patients,” Riekeman says. “People want a healthcare system that reflects their social lifestyle, values of health prevention, conservative non-drug procedures, eating well, moving well and thinking well.”
To learn more, visit chiropracticlifestylestudios.com
30955 Woodward Ave
Ste 435
Royal Oak, MI 48073. Office phone #: 248-955-2244,
248-654-8841, 248-955-2244.
DID YOU KNOW? OPIOIDS AND CHIROPRACTIC CARE
JAMA Network (a journal of the American Medical Association) reports that “low back pain is one of the leading causes of disability and chronic pain among adults and is the most common reason patients are prescribed opioids.”
In an abstract printed in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, a healthcare insurance benefits study that focused on New Hampshire state employees, it was documented that the “per employee health benefit cost dropped more than 70 percent (from $6,917 to $2,066), and opioid costs dropped more than 77 percent (from $921 to $204) when employees were under chiropractic care.
