Healing From Within
Osterville chiropractor Dr. Thomas Bober talks about the services offered through his practice, Allied Wellness Affiliates of Cape Cod – known as All-Well Holistic Healthcare – with a passion fueled by a keen interest in cutting-edge technology. His passion is shared by affiliated practitioners at All-Well’s Osterville and South Dennis sites, who provide complementary non-invasive, non-drug healing techniques such as massage therapy, laser weight-loss treatment, nutrition analysis and education, and auditory rehabilitation.
“This is 21st-century healing,” Bober says. “We’re always trying to get down to the core dysfunction and help people correct that.”
Some people seek All-Well’s services when nothing else has worked for chronic problems; others want to promote their bodies’ own healing process. Their experience often changes the way they think about health. Bober says, “We are a culture that is enamored with covering up the problem. The culture we create in this office is diametrically opposed to what they’re used to.”
Bober explains that whatever treatment modality one chooses, wellness involves looking at how we take care of ourselves, including the food we eat and how we use our bodies. He calls his philosophical framework “PAIGE,” which can be visualized as a five-point star with a letter at each point: The P stands for portion control; the A for acid/alkaline balance; the I for immune response; the G for glycemic index, or how sugars metabolize; and the E stands for exercise and energy. At the center of Bober’s five-point star is an R, which stands for raw food, a unifying component for wellness in each of the points.
About half of Bober’s patients come for regular chiropractic care, typically for back and neck pain, headaches, neuromuscular problems, and stress-related disorders. But Bober is continually investigating and bringing to Cape Cod the latest tools to optimize well-being.
He recently began offering Zerona laser weight-loss treatment, in which four low-level lasers are directed at fatty tissue and drain the fat from the cells, where it is eliminated through the lymphatic system. Zerona, which has been cleared for market by the Food and Drug Administration, is like liposuction without the scarring. “This simply accelerates the body’s natural process,” Bober says. And since you can target where the treatments apply, Bober says it’s popular with people who want to contour their shape, such as mothers recovering from pregnancy.
Bober points to clinical studies in which people lost an average of over 3 ½ inches between their waist, hips, and thighs over a two-week period, with 12 laser treatments. A comparison group that received sham treatments only lost half an inch. For some, seeing a difference in how their clothes fit in such a short time motivates them to make lifestyle changes that maintain their new figure. Bober says, “This is the accelerator. A lot of people get into a rut. They need that extra investment in themselves to get back on track.”
All-Well’s affiliated practitioners support people on their wellness track by giving them tools to improve their overall well-being. For instance, Kate Acton, a nutritional microscopist, performs blood analyses – usually before and after a treatment series – to guide diet and lifestyle changes. “I give people a powerful visual of what’s going on with the body,” she says. “Then I educate them about what choices they can make about nutrition, like getting more water and vegetables.”
Technician Steven Zazzera conducts a 10-week “uncooked” class to teach people how they can incorporate nutritious and good-tasting raw food into their diet. “We cover everything from how to sprout seeds, rehydrate foods, and how to open a coconut,” Zazzera says. The class might focus for one week on a single item, like green smoothies or raw desserts, to help participants master the concept.
“By the end of 10 weeks, their ability to transform their lives is intact,” Bober says about the intensive food-preparation instruction. “Our whole goal is to raise their level of awareness up; and as they’re moving up that stage, we give them information through things like lab analysis.”
Bober’s interest in innovative therapy extends to an auditory rehabilitation program that re-educates the brain’s pathways to improve cognitive, sensory and speech/language function as well as behavioral and emotional disorders. Listening training, as it’s called, is offered in South Dennis at the Dynamic Listening Center of Cape Cod, run by Bober and his wife, Susan Reid Danton, who has a master’s degree in expressive arts therapy and is a listening specialist.
Bober explains that listening training uses a computer that controls the output of varying tones, which activates various parts of the brain and “… essentially is a workout for the brain.”
According to Bober, anyone may be brain injured to some degree, whether from developmental factors, childbirth or trauma. He says, “Everybody that does the program sees changes: cognitive, perceptual, and proprioceptive (a spatial positioning sense).”
Bober’s 9-year-old son, who has severe autism and didn’t talk until he was 5, introduced Bober to the power of listening training. His son now has a functional vocabulary of 20 to 30 words, and Bober says, “It was the listening program we bumped into that made a difference.”
Realizing that their son could progress to his potential with the right services, Bober and Danton searched all over Cape Cod for appropriate educational settings for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The public school districts didn’t offer such best-practice programs as year-round Applied Behavior Analysis and individualized instruction by highly trained staff.
So two years ago, they founded the Manor House School of Cape Cod in South Dennis. As a “sole source” provider of these services on the Cape, Manor House is eligible (depending on need) for special education funding through a student’s
home district.
Whether it’s caring for patients seeking non-invasive treatment, or finding the right technology and therapy to help his son, Bober is committed to opening doors to healing on the Cape. “We give people lots of options,” he says. “Our whole idea is to build community. We’ve got clusters of wellness-oriented communities from Falmouth to Provincetown.” He hopes to expand those wellness spheres. -cha
Photography by Bob Kahn Photography, www.bobkahn.com
Written by Susan Spencer
Susan Spencer is an award-winning writer and photographer who lives in Brewster and Whitinsville, MA. She contributes
frequently to CHA Magazine on energy, environment and health issues. You can reach Susan at ss1013@charter.net
