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For you convenience, this page contains articles about Dr. Bakalis' patients. We invite you to read them.
| Chiropractor to the Prince William Cannons |
| By Mary Anne Schneider, Staff Writer |
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| Sports Personality |
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| Washington Capitals hockey player Rod Langway was experiencing back pain that had benched him for a month and threatened to de-ice his career into early retirement. Local chiropractic physician Dr. George Bakalis had been following local sports reports about Langway's difficulties and was thinking that the skilled hands of a chiropractor might prove to be the painless prescription the hockey player needed. Surprisingly enough, Langway was referred to Bakalis and received permission from the team to be treated. Eleven days later he was back on the ice, and Dr. Bakalis is now in his second season as a consulting and treating chiropractic physician for the Washington Capitols. An avid athlete, the Westridge resident says his number one priority is patients in the community. But he has always wanted to wed his chiropractic healing skills with his love of sports and treat professional athletes. When Dr. Bakalis opened his Woodbridge practice six years ago, he wrote the management of then Prince William Pirates offering his services, but never received a response. This winter he was contacted by the Prince William Cannons baseball team and asked to submit a resumé to the New York Yankees, the parent club of the local franchise. He's been chosen as the local chiropractor for the Cannons and will start his duties in early April when the team returns to Woodbridge to start the '92 season. Dr. Bakalis says, "I have an understanding of the physical and emotional demands that an athlete goes through because of my own experience in athletics." Bakalis was a running back at Wake Forest University and played basketball and ran track. He enjoys golfing and recently took up roller-blading and ice skating "to get a feeling for what hockey players' bodies go through." Dr. Bakalis enjoys attending the Capitols' home games and sees a variety of back, neck, shoulder, hand and groin injuries in the players he treats. Sports injuries and pain may be caused by macro-trauma, a big hit typical of the injury a hockey player might sustain when he is checked or micro-trauma, an injury caused by repeating the same movement over and over, as a pitcher does in delivering a baseball, for example. Baseball injuries in the upcoming season may include shoulder or elbow truama or rotator cuff injuries, he said. The admission of chiropractors into the locker rooms of professional teams is a relatively new phenomenon. It heralds the newly dawning respect this 100 year old nonmedical healing art is finally gaining. An article in last month's Football Digest says, "Although most clubs' medical staffs remain skeptical, an increasing demand by players to have a chiropractor on board has forced teams to allow them in the locker room." Professional athletes have been seeing chiropractors without the consent of head trainers for a long time, because they say they experience a definite improvement in pain management and are able to return to their respective sports quickly after treatment. The goals and treatments of chiropractic medicine are unfamiliar to many, and chiropractors have endured a long history of scorn in the mainstream medical community. The American Medical Association's committee on quackery at one time termed chiropractic medicine an "unscientific cult." It is no wonder that it took Dr. Bakalis until the latter part of his undergraduate study at Wake Forest University and the University of Maryland to translate his interest in generic medicine into a goal of becoming a chiropractic physician. "I was interested in generic medicine and knew I wanted to help people, but I had no desire to prescribe drugs or perform surgery, so I didn't want to become a medical doctor," said Dr. Bakalis. "I was on spring break in North Carolina playing basketball at the YMCA when I met a University of Maryland graduate who said he was going to chiropractic school. I didn't know what a chiropractor was, but his description of chiropractic medicine sparked my interest. When I returned from spring break, I looked into chiropractic medicine at the career placement center on campus. It was like a light went on, and I knew what I wanted to do." The name chiropractor is derived from the Greek words, chiro (hand) and praktos (to do) meaning done by hand without drugs or surgery. The chiropractor's goal is to turn on the body's own natural healing process by correcting spinal nerve stress, called vertebral subluxation by chiropractors. Dr. Bakalis received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland and his Doctor of Chiropractic from the National College of Chiropractic Medicine in Chicago in 1984. |
 Fellow students at the school had chosen chiropractic because they were related to practitioners of the art and found it unusual that Bakalis had chosen this profession on his own. Chiropractors spend four years studying the subtleties of the spine, including exhaustive courses in anatomy, pathology, biochemistry and microbiology. Bakalis calls chiropractors "human body mechanics" who diagnose mechanical problems of the spine which interfere with nerve function. In order for a vertebra to be subluxated, according to Dr. Bakalis, it must have four qualities. The vertebra is out of proper alignment with the other vertebra; there is a narrowing of a canal through which the nerves lie; there is an impingement of nerve tissue as a result of canal narrowing; and there is interference with nerve messages between the brain and the body. A chiropractor determines treatment only after taking a complete patient history, doing a thorough physical examination that includes orthopedic, neurological and muscular exams, taking x-rays when necessary and sometimes performing electromyography (EMG) which is scanning the body for muscle spasms. If the patient's problem is determined to be within the scope of his practice, treatment options are discussed. It is important to note that chiropractors refer patients to appropriate medical specialists for treatment of injuries like fractures, ripped tendons, dislocations and procedures like MRI and CAT scans. A course of treatment after diagnosis is highly individualized. A chiropractor takes a holistic approach in patient treatment that includes therapy options as well as patient education in diet, preventive exercise including proper posture and lifting techniques and self care techniques. Office treatment may include spinal manipulation or adjustment, a "proficient technique" where the chiropractor places his hands on the spine to manipulate specific joints to improve the spine's alignment and motion and to relieve pain, pressure and irritation. Myofascial pain syndrome occurs when damaged muscles become knotted up and are unable to contract and relax, Dr. Bakalis said. This type of soft tissue damage occurs because of strain, poor posture, overuse, trauma or lack of exercise and poor nutrition. The result is pain and limited mobility in your body including your back, leg, arm, wrist or jaw. To "untangle" muscle knots, Dr. Bakalis said a chiropractor uses a variety of techniques, including trigger point therapy where direct pressure is applied to areas of knotted muscle tissue to allow the contracted muscle to relax. Joint adjustment is another technique where gentle pressure is applied to joints in various parts of the body to help realign bones at the joint. To help relax muscles, a chiropractor may direct gentle, painless electrical impulses or painless ultrasound waves to the affected area. These treatments help reduce pain and swelling, increase circulation to the damaged area and improve a patient's range of motion. Dr. Bakalis enjoys a cordial relationship with the coaches and head trainer of the Washington Capitols and is warmed by the recent praise of a coach who credited him with prolonging the career of a team player. Skeptics of chiropractic may wish to note the results of recent scientific studies. One study found that patients with chronic or severe low back pain fared better with chiropractic treatment than those who received more conventional hospital treatment that included physical therapy and traction. Time Magazine reports a recent Rand Corporation study found chiropractic manipulation was helpful for healthy patients who developed sudden back pain. Florida researchers said employees with back injuries who were seen by medical doctors were absent from work twice as long as those who were treated by chiropractors. You don't have to go to the pages of Time Magazine to find support for the increasingly popular chiropractic treatment. Dr. Bakalis employs six office staff members who undergo regular spinal adjustment. Mrs. Bakalis, expecting the couple's second child in May, has had chiropractic treatment to relieve pregnancy related back pain she has experienced. Dr. Bakalis relies on the monthly ministrations of his own chiropractor to relieve neck and back pain. |
| the Old Bridge Observer; March 14, 1992 |
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