The Meaning Response Enhancing the healing effects of environment Applying therapies in settings where the milieu mirrors a comfortable space will elevate the meaning response. Dr. Lombardi’s waiting room ensures this from the moment patients walk through the door. W Dr. Anthony Lombardi is a private consultant to athletes in the NFL, CFL and NHL, and founder of Ham-ilton Back Clinic, a multidisciplinary clinic. He teaches his fundamental EXSTORE Assessment System and practice building workshops to vari-ous health professionals. For more information, visit www.exstore.ca. Anthony J. Lombardi, DC hat do the following things have in common?: the colour of your walls; your waiting room furniture; what the patient hears while waiting in your office; the way you shake your patients’ hands; how often your patients come in for treatment; how you explain things to patients; the magazines in your waiting room; the topic of conversation during treatment; the sensory environment; and almost every other aspect, of your treatment room. These things, and countless others, influence an untapped reservoir of healing capacity referred to as the meaning response – it can easily be accessed by our patients on every visit; therefore, we need to become aware of it. I began practising 11 years ago and, since then, I have averaged about 600 new patients per year. Many chiropractors do what I do clinically, and are successful, but was I doing something different unrelated to clinical practice that I could make sure I kept doing to ensure success for both the patients who came to see me and my practice overall? Then I started reading research by Moerman (2002), Walach and Jonas (2004), Newman (2009), and others that exemplified how therapists use this something called the meaning response to harness healing capabilities within their patients during treat-ments. I began to study articles on meaning response and I realized I was already doing a lot of this – so, I wondered how I could maximize my results along these lines. I would like to share with you how I have been able to successfully improve my clinical results by incorporating simple additions to everyday practice. WHAT IS A MEANING RESPONSE? “The only important thing is the meaning that it has for you.” – W . Somerset Maugham Meaning response is the brain’s perception of the surrounding environment, which elicits 24 • CANADIAN CHIROPRACTOR | JUNE 2013 www.canadianchiropractor.ca
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