McKenzie Method Care in Lemont, IL
The movement that turns it off.
The McKenzie Method starts from a simple observation: for most back, neck, and radiating pain there is a direction of movement that makes it better. Find it, and it becomes your treatment.
An exam that listens to your symptoms
Mechanical Diagnosis and Therapy (MDT), better known as the McKenzie Method, assesses your spine with repeated movements instead of a single snapshot. As you bend, extend, or glide in specific directions, Dr. Filippini tracks how the symptoms respond: spreading further down the limb, or retreating toward the spine.
That retreat, called centralization, is the method's compass. It points to your direction of preference, the specific movement that takes pressure off the sensitive tissue. Dr. Filippini completed post-graduate training in the method and has used it chairside for disc and nerve-related pain ever since.
Assess, match, then make it yours
The goal is not just relief in the office. It is you leaving with the exercise that controls your symptoms at home.
Assess with movement
Repeated test movements map how your symptoms behave, sorting out which direction helps and which one aggravates.
Match the exercise
Your direction of preference becomes a precise exercise prescription, along with the posture corrections that stop the problem from rebuilding.
Own the fix
You practice it until it is yours. Between visits the exercise does the work, and future flare-ups meet a patient who knows exactly what to do.
Self-treatment, backed by the full toolkit
McKenzie exercise handles the direction your spine prefers; the rest of the care handles what exercise alone cannot. Dr. Filippini pairs the method with hands-on treatment so progress comes from both sides.
- Chiropractic adjustments to restore motion in stuck joints
- IASTM when guarded soft tissue needs releasing
- Corrective and rehab exercise to build lasting capacity
McKenzie Method questions, answered
What is the McKenzie Method?
Formally called Mechanical Diagnosis and Therapy (MDT), it is an assessment and treatment system built around repeated movements. Instead of only asking where it hurts, the exam watches how your symptoms respond as you move in specific directions, then uses what it finds to prescribe the exercise that settles them. Dr. Filippini holds post-graduate training in the method.
What does the McKenzie Method treat?
It is best known for back pain, neck pain, and pain that radiates into an arm or leg, including many disc-related cases. The assessment itself is also valuable: it quickly sorts problems that will respond to mechanical care from ones that need a different approach.
How is this different from regular stretching?
Stretching is general; McKenzie exercise is specific. The exam identifies your direction of preference, the movement that draws symptoms out of the leg or arm and toward the spine, and you work that direction deliberately. The wrong direction can stir radiating pain up, which is exactly why the assessment comes first.
Is the McKenzie Method chiropractic?
It began in physical therapy, and that is part of its value here: Dr. Filippini combines the McKenzie assessment and home exercises with chiropractic adjustments and soft tissue work, so the joints, the tissue, and your daily habits all pull in the same direction.
Take charge of your own relief
One movement assessment can find the exercise your spine has been asking for. Call the office to get started.