SACRAL ADJUSTMENTS
The adjustment of the comparatively fixed sacrum is difficult at best and requires a very considerable force, violently applied. It is probable that nine-tenths of all attempts to move sacra fail. In children, when sacrum does not articulate properly with the ilia, and in adults in whom the sacrum has been loosened by trauma and remains in an abnormal relation to surrounding structures, it can be moved.
The sacrum is described as being posterior at the base or at the apex, and its axis for rotation is believed to be a transverse line through the sacroiliac articulations. Force for its adjustment is applied at right angles to the curve of the sacrum at the point of contact. The best contact is with the heel of the hand against a part of the sacrum, the wrist of the adjusting hand being gripped and reinforced by the other hand. If standing on patient’s left, the right hand becomes adjusting hand for sacrum as for the last two Lumbars, if on the right, the left hand.
Another contact is with the pisiform and adjacent soft part of hand upon the sacral base, the pisiform hooking against the first sacral spinous process.
Do not mistake an anterior fifth Lumbar for a posterior sacral base. Discriminate between iliac and sacral subluxations by noting that with the latter both sacroiliac articulations, and with the former only one seems abnormal.
Fig. 29. “Bohemian Move” for correction of anterior fifth Lumbar by transmitting shock through spine.