February 2004

Oklahaven in Poland

A story to tell: Gratitude for chiropractic's love and commitment

by Bozena Bejnar‑Slawow

Like other professionals in neuro‑developmental therapy working with brain injured children, I am interested in new ways to help improve their treatment.

I will always be thankful to my colleague Phyllis Libby for my first contact with the work done at Oklahaven Children's Chiropractic Center, run by Dr. Bobby Doscher.

I had a unique opportunity to observe Dr. Doscher's work on one of my first clients. After years of searching the world for an answer to post‑brain‑injury problems, Adam and his parents were quite experienced with many approaches, but Adam had reached a plateau in his improvement.

I had the privilege to pass on to Adam's parents the information which Phyllis gave me about the power of chiropractic to facilitate the body's own recuperative energy.

It was on my trip to Oklahaven with Adam that I became aware of how helpful Dr. Doscher's work could be in my work for the last 18 years. Not only did Adam make remarkable changes in walking, eating, speaking but the reduction of his athetoid movements gave him an incredible control over his body.

My choice of treatment in neurologically impaired children has mainly focused on detoxification, sound therapy, physical, physiological and intellectual stimulation that promotes neurological organization.

By teaching parents and professionals in my birth‑land of Poland as well as other countries, this approach has proven to be quite successful.

Many of the children I have worked with received some body work involving chiropractic care but none have had light‑touch, upper‑cervical chiropractic.

Other children whom I accompanied to Oklahaven from Poland also had phenomenal results, such as:

***  learning to chew

***  using their hands to feed themselves

***  decreasing drastically the amount and severity of seizures

***  improving their immune system

***  improving their speech

***  gaining the skill of walking

The case histories of children I observed indicated complications at birth which so often end in pulling and tugging the baby by its head. Dr. Doscher's expertise makes the role of light‑touch, upper‑cervical chiropractic approach crucial in restoring them to health after such trauma.

A few of the outstanding improvements I observed in the space of only four days were:

***  Two children with rigid cerebral palsied bodies and athetotic movements were able to sit up on their own for the first time. One child's muscles had so relaxed he had no sense that he was sitting, being distracted by playing with a cell phone. Both boys simply lifted themselves up to sitting from the all fours or quadruped position for creeping.

***  A 13‑month‑old baby who had yet to take nourishment from the breast, could not suck and was on the verge of getting a G‑tube, all because of a profound upper cervical subluxation was able to nurse for the first time. He also slept through the night.

***  After receiving adjustments, an autistic 9‑year‑old girl who had stopped trying to talk began to vocalize and respond to her parents. The adjustments caused her awareness to heighten and behavior to calm down and become more appropriate.

She began using old words again and new ones with greater focus and animation. Her face was more expressive and her pupils constricted faster. In her neurological reeducation therapy she had succeeded in detoxifying from anti‑convulsants and anti‑depressants in June 2003, but her progress had slowed since that time.

Clearly the adjustments jumpstarted innate and her liver function improved dramatically.

It was after seeing these results that I realized that Dr. Doscher's work is unique and that her approach must be introduced to professionals in Poland.

I felt great joy when Dr. Doscher agreed to accept my invitation to speak at a conference on Optimal Methods in Using Mobility for Handicapped Children, held in Poznan, Poland on November 14, 2003.

The chairperson of the event, Prof. S. Kowalik, found Dr. Doscher's presentation most interesting and inspiring.

Although the original thrust of the conference focused on helping handicapped children with their limitations, Dr. Doscher proposed that first we effect changes in the alignment of the child's nervous system to provide him or her with the power to erase those limitations and regain more useful function.

The power of her visual documentation awed members of the audience, who asked many excellent questions after her presentation and received these new ideas with open mindedness and great enthusiasm.

Dr. Doscher was grateful and thrilled to hear the concerns of dedicated professionals from traditional fields of physiotherapy. The Polish interest in the work of chiropractic and neuro reeducation has begun building a bridge of compassion and love for children between our two cultures.

The trip to Poland had another purpose. Dr. Doscher was asked to share her work with my Polish parents and professional colleagues. Once again, her unique approach in chiropractic and her 25 years of experience proved to be incredibly valuable to the hurt children.

Dr. Bobby Doscher planted a seed in the consciousness of every person she encountered. I hope this will be the beginning of a growing relationship with my native land. I wish to thank her for her efforts and the sharing of her knowledge to bring hope to hurt Polish children, their families and the therapeutic and academic communities with her chiropractic techniques.