A husband and wife team with two different approaches to medicine share the same premises, and the same goal ? total patient care.

Dr. Laura Dowling runs the Bermuda Chiropractic Health Centre and her husband Dr. Henry S. Dowling runs the Associates in Integrated Health Family Health.Their offices are located on lower King Street.

They balance each other off, with her dealing with people?s musculoskeletal and related disorders and him dealing with their emotional and physical well-being in another category of medicine.

Dr. Henry Dowling, a Bermudian, his wife and their two daughters Nalani and Kayla moved back to the Island almost two years ago.

Dr. Laura said she became interested in becoming a chiropractor after injuring her back in a car accident.

At that time, New Jersey born, Dr. Laura Dowling was a realtor, however, after receiving treatment from her chiropractor, she knew it was her calling.

?I never felt so good,? she said, ?I felt better than I had ever felt after I came from my chiropractor.?Dr. Laura Dowling, who is qualified in the Activator Methods Chiropractic Technique ? a gentle, low force method of adjusting the spine and related extremities ? said: ?It is considered to be one of the safest techniques in use today and is the second largest chiropractic technique in the world.

?The origin of the word chiropractic is Greek and it essentially means done by hand,? she said.

?The primary procedure performed by chiropractors is known as a chiropractic adjustment or manipulation, which is done primarily by hand.

?By adjusting the spine, we endeavour to restore normal joint and spinal function, improve range of motion, allow for improved nerve flow and thereby optimise health.?

Dr. Laura added that when she first examines a patient depending on the state of their spine, treatments can begin at three visits a week, but she said: ?I care about people and I don?t believe in over-treating patients.

?I prefer to enable the body to heal itself and not to depend on coming to me every week. The body should be able to heal itself after alignment.?

But she added that people don?t have to wait until they are in pain before they visit a chiropractor.

?Come in for a spinal assessment, as usually by the time you are feeling pain there is a lot of damage to the spine,? she said.

Dr. Laura Dowling said as a chiropractic student she had to complete several years of pre-med studies, just like any other doctor and then she had to complete another four years of chiropractor school.

?We did extensive studies in the anatomy of the nervous system, the organs and skeletal system,? she said.

?We had to learn about and dissect the brain, spinal cord, all of the body organs, the entire nervous system and muscle tissue.

?We had to hold muscles in our hands and we had to learn how every part of the body related to another.?It is so much more to being a chiropractor than adjusting a spine.?

Dr. Laura Dowling qualified seven years ago and has been in full time practice for two years. She treats patients with: lower back pain; sciatica, damage to the largest and longest nerve system in the body; degeneration, which is a calcium build up after a spinal damage; neck pain; and vertebral subluxation; identifying and treating disc disorders.

?We treat people with all sorts of problems, not just spinal problems and if another doctor is needed than we recommend the patient on,? she said

?Sometimes I am treating a patient for one problem and they may stop suffering from headaches and other ailments.

?I don?t like to say that we heal all sorts of different things, but often problems in the body are all linked to the spine and whether it is aligned correctly.?

She said sometimes after a pregnancy women cannot control their bladders.

?What people don?t realise is that the spine at its related organs get moved around during pregnancy and they need to be re-adjusted in order for the body to function properly again.

?Usually once they have been re-aligned they are fine.?

Of her patients she said many of her referrals were through word of mouth.

She said: ?I have the best patients. I love all of my patients.?I give the best care that I can.?

Dr. Henry S. Dowling, is no ordinary GP (general practitioner), he is in fact a family practitioner, ?a specialist? in complete family health.

He provides services of family counselling, behavioural therapy, depression, stress management, substance abuse, adult medicine, gynaecological care, infant, child and adolescent care, home care, sports medicine, occupational medicine, disability assessment, employee health, job related injuries and illness and drug screening.

He also deals with community medicine and does talks to schools, churches, private organisations and businesses.

Dr. Henry Dowling was educated at Morehouse College, Emory University, and a three year speciality in family medicine, at Columbia Overlook Hospital, Summit, New Jersey. He deals with geriatric medicine, dermatological surgical procedures and the removal of small pre-cancerous lesions.The speciality of family medicine is centred on lasting relationships with patients and their families.

?Our primary purpose is to care for the individual patient, regardless of the disease,? he said, ?Other specialists see caring for the individual disease, regardless of the patient.

?Family physicians really know their patients, they listen to them, take time with them and help them to make the right choices in their health care decisions.

?We are highly trained in the most up to date treatments and technologies, but family physicians know that patients want more than a medical diagnosis, they want the comprehensive, personalised care that we offer.?

Dr. Dowling said he is updating his training in the treatment of asthmatic patients on the Island and discovered that many of their symptoms were brought on by allergic reactions such as to mould and mildew.

He said: ?I am treating the allergic reaction rather than the asthma and I?m getting some pretty good results in reducing the need for multiple inhalers.

?There is still a stigma to using steroids, especially with parents and their children, but the newer methods of delivering medications makes side effects very low if not non existent.

?Studies have shown that it is important to prevent the attacks while young in order to extend the quality of life once the patient gets older,? he said.

?There is no reason why anyone should be under a doctor?s care, and still be suffering from multiple asthma attacks.?

Because Dr. Dowling is in practice with his wife, he gets a lot of patients who practice natural treatments for common ailments.

?It is important to ask what over the counter and herbal remedies patients are using; including the illegal ones, because it can impact on how and what type of care he can provide,? he said.

?Today?s patients are more knowledgeable and are sometimes more up on newer treatments than the doctors.

?Although there are still patients who come looking for antibiotics, more and more are willing to be educated as to the cause of their illness and are willing to do lifestyle modification to improve their health.

?An example of this is the treatment of migraines, which can often be done through changing diet and learning behavioural techniques.

?I am not against using medicines, and actually encourage their proper use in certain circumstances, but I also offer alternatives when requested.?