By James Panter
To Dr. Bobby Doscher, the best way to tell the chiropractic story is through the healing of a child.
After taking over as chief executive officer at Oklahaven Children’s Chiropractic Center in 1979, she recognized her new role as an opportunity to demonstrate how effective natural, drug-free health care can be.
“It’s the greatest way to show the chiropractic way of life and I think the very severely hurt children show what it’s like to not have a chiropractic way of life,” she says. “My work has shown me the power of chiropractic in honoring the life force, or innate, and that life is a responsibility. It’s the mother who takes back her power and is responsible for her child and getting them well.”
Oklahaven, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, was founded in 1962 in Oklahoma City, Okla., as a nonprofit facility to help sick and disabled children. From the start, the patients were chronically ill children who were paralyzed, in braces and wheelchair-bound. Now, the center also serves children with disorders such as autism. Doctors teach parents about a “chiropractic way of life” that encompasses regular adjustments, whole natural foods, fresh air and sunshine to help the child’s body grow and develop.
The center also offers encouragement and a new perspective to parents who have spent their time and money searching for solutions to health problems without success.
“I feel the mission at Oklahaven is to teach,” Doscher says. “To give hope that these children can become whole.”
A sufferer of chronic scoliosis, Doscher understands the battle well. A native of Philadelphia, she spent 10 years as an international flight attendant, and after enduring knee surgery and discovering that she had drug allergies, she turned to chiropractic care.
“It not only fixed my knee, it fixed me,” she recalls. “I had more energy, focus and power. That’s when I went to Palmer College to become a chiropractor and that’s when I truly began to love the premise of chiropractic.”
Specialized Analysis and Care
After relocating to Oklahoma in 1979, Doscher carried out the wishes of Dr. O.S. Witt, a longtime chiropractor who had bequeathed his building to Oklahaven.
“He made a will that there had to be a certain number of children there and it had to be staffed every day,” she describes.
The children’s center remained in the 12th Street location until 1993, when it moved to its current facility, a 2,000-square-foot converted home that has six treatment rooms, two offices, an X-ray room, a film developing room, a board room and a kitchen. A chiropractic museum room, commemorating the building as a former Carver Chiropractic College site, contains an adjusting table and a biomechanical table.
Doscher serves as president of a 15-member board of directors that governs Oklahaven. The center’s staff includes two chiropractors and a group of volunteers who provide specific care, such as upper cervical adjustments, computer services and communications functions. Part-time adjunct staff members include a masseuse, an office manager, a chiropractic assistant and a director, who has a social work degree. Paula Barnes, president of a parents support group, gives instructions to mothers.
“We have a full-time neuro-developmental specialist, Phyllis Libby, who gives the children home programs and evaluates them with me,” Doscher says.
The center implements innovative programs in its care, such as having a naturopath-leading aromatherapy and unique “colorpuncture” sessions, which use lights to “draw the energy,” according to Doscher.
Oklahaven receives cases through referrals from doctors and word-of-mouth. While the children are under care, their families generally reside in extended stay hotels in the Oklahoma City area.
In the initial hour-long consultation with parents, Doscher and staff members take a case history and then evaluate the findings.
“So many things have been done to these children,” explains Doscher. “A severely hurt child has been many places before they find us. We use a form to establish their neurological age against their chronological age, and calculate by a chart.
“We can tell their mother that the child’s hearing might be at one age and his vision might be at another age. Then you can help the mother with understanding the rate of growth, because it shows the mother that the child is walking, but maybe his vision, hearing or tactility is off.”
Then, a three-month care plan is usually set up. Doscher, who handles the most severe cases, sees from five to 15 patients per day.
“Years ago, the children came with symptoms. Now they come with syndromes,” she notes. “What’s a syndrome? Five symptoms. We ask questions about symptoms and then we watch them disappear. Our research is empirical. They have intensive multiple treatments. We work on them between 20 minutes and an hour, and the very severe children need three treatments a day.”
How does the care start?
“First, I make the child breathe,” Doscher points out. “I find that the breathing mechanism is off in the body. If the child lies flat, with the arms above the head, it begins the breathing mechanism. It is hard to keep the child still, but if you do it, it is far easier to adjust them. In letting them stay there, the mother can begin to get involved in the treatment.”
Doscher, who is a specific upper cervical care specialist, uses full spine and light force techniques in delivering adjustments.
“You have to get the body relaxed before you put the force in there,” she says. “The adjustment, if it’s going to be forceful, has to be with the mechanisms in the body. I find that if you don’t have the right angles and the right mechanisms, you cannot make the adjustment. I definitely think they need specific upper cervical. You must learn to clear the foramen magnum.”
Difficult Challenges
Children at Oklahaven may suffer from chromosome disorders and may even have had shunts or rods placed in their heads. Autism cases, which have dramatically increased in recent years, also present difficult challenges.
“Autistic cases are hard because there is sensory shutdown,” says Doscher. “Autistic children don’t like you to touch them. They don’t let you into their world. It’s like when you’re tired and you’re reading a book at the end of the day and you have two images on the page. And then you close one eye and you have one image, and even that begins to move. That’s what it’s like for the dyslexic, ADD and autism children. It’s just how severely the sensory system shuts down.”
Doscher has observed the underlying components of health that have to be addressed in providing care for children.
“A research study by Dr. (Hans) Selye showed that if there are three insults to the body, you set it off-course,” she says. “The body gets insults like trauma at birth and from vaccines or toxins. The children that are severely hurt have been knocked off a path in some way.
“Right now, autism is proving the toxic theory of chiropractic, which says that problems come from stress, trauma and toxins. The toxicity seems to be throwing off the sensory pathway.”
Eliminating toxins is so important that Doscher insists on children adopting a drug-free program in order to regain their health.
“They must be ready for this journey,” she says. “They have to be off their medication. If the children are old enough, I give them choice of how they’re going to do it. I’ve had them go off in increments. I’ve had them go cold turkey, but in that case, they must have a treatment every day. That’s when I really start the intense work. The drugs have side effects and time releases, and you see it come out of the skin. They can become violently ill or they might become depressed. But if you keep working with the body every day, they will get through that faster, and then you’ll see a quicker recovery.
“It’s just not right for the child to keep drugging them,” she adds. “If they’re still on the medicine, they must have the treatments intensely because if you’re going to treat them and take the medicine, you’re toxifying the body again, and that’s why they’re there.”
Parents pay a flat fee per week for the child to receive as much care as possible. Oklahaven, which has an annual budget of $200,000, has operated through private donations for 35 years, and the center relies on field doctors and organizations to support the work. Donations are accepted online at Oklahaven’s web site (www.chiropractic4kids.net) and special fundraising events provide opportunities for chiropractors to become involved.
“For our ‘Have a Heart’ event during the week of Valentine’s Day,” states Dr. Doscher, “we will give every doctor who participates a video. They can show the video in their clinic or anyplace they want, sell hearts and then give the donations to us. My vision is that every clinic would do something Valentine’s week to help us by educating the public and asking for donations.”
Oklahaven, which serves as a mentor for chiropractors, has plans to set up a national advisory board and to establish more international programs, such as the camps set up in Mexico, Guatemala and Jordan.
With tireless enthusiasm and a love for children, Doscher ensures that the center stays aligned with its purpose.
“It has to do with the true premise of chiropractic,” she says. “If the energy, or innate, is intact, the children get well.”
About the author: James Panter is editor of Today’s Chiropractic.
For more information
Oklahaven Children’s Chiropractic Center
4500 North Meridian
Oklahoma City, OK 73112
(405) 948-8807
www.chiropractic4kids.net
e-mail oklahaven@flash.net