Applied kinesiology and other fruits of a great year

Research papers; foot and ankle chapters; chapters on peripheral nerve entrapments of the lower body; applied kinesiology diagnostic and treatment methods; the evolution of applied kinesiology methods over the past decade...the fruits of Spring-Summer and Fall 2010

A long and fruitful year is coming to its cyclical end. So with a daily rhythm of patient-care, clinic management, exercise, reading, music (punctuated by half-cooked but hearty meals) - and then more writing, a huge amount of work has been accomplished.

All of this work is being completed on the cliffs above the Arkansas River here in Pueblo, Colorado. The natural scenes that surround us here suggest certain values – old oaks dignity, pines resolution, the pond calm, the river ceaseless flow – and therefore in an unobtrusive way, this environment has acted as an inspiration to virtuous, steady, and deep work.

On the cliffs above the Arkansas

Scott on his pond near the convergence of the Arkansas River and his home

A beautiful tiny pine tree starting its long life
(it'll throw shade on my grave!)

…Nature can so inform

The mind that is within us, so impress

With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb

Our chearful faith that all which we behold

Is full of blessings.

-- William Wordsworth

Applied Kinesiology writing and research, 2010

A number of applied kinesiology research projects have borne fruit. An important paper (co-authored with Dr. Anthony Rosner and Dr. Donald McDowall from Australia) regarding the presence of positive manual muscle test (MMT) findings in patients with mechanical neck pain (MNP) is about to be published in the PubMed Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies (JBMT).

The paper’s title is Association of manual muscle tests and mechanical neck pain: Results from a prospective pilot study. Look for its appearance in the next few months!

Our efforts to make JBMT the official journal of the International College of Applied Kinesiology (ICAK) has also borne fruit, and we hope that the publication of this important paper (describing an important “subgroup” of patients with MNP who have a definitive and measurable tissue-impairment amenable to diagnosis) will coincide with the announcement that ICAK has made the JBMT its official journal.

The work with the ICAK USAs research director Anthony Rosner, PhD has been an incredible experience. His depth of understanding, sympathy for a fellow writer, and gifts for presenting scientific information in a lyrical and certainly elegant style have been a true internship for me. We have been successful in publishing a number of applied kinesiology papers this year, with several more already accepted for publication or in development.

v    Cuthbert S, Rosner A. Applied Kinesiology Management of Long-Term Head Pain Following Automotive Injuries: A Case Report. Chiropr J Aust. 2010;40:109-16. Available at: http://chiropractors.asn.au//Content/NavigationMenu/Publications/CJA/CurrentIssues2010/Volume40/Vol40Issue3/default.htm#Marker4

v    Cuthbert S, Rosner A. Applied kinesiology methods for a 10-year-old child with headaches, neck pain, asthma, and reading disabilities. J Chiro Med. 2010; 9(3):138-145. Available at: http://www.journalchiromed.com/article/S1556-3707(10)00067-2/abstract

v    Cuthbert S, Rosner A. Applied kinesiology methods for sciatica and restless leg syndrome. Iowa Chiropractic Society Review. Summer 2010:6-9, 19.

v    Cuthbert S, Rosner A. Applied Kinesiology Management of Candidiasis and Chronic Ear Infections: A Case History. J. Pediatric, Maternal & Family Health - August 3, 2010. Available at: http://chiropracticpediatricresearch.web.officelive.com/2010_1042_candidiasis.aspx

Another important paper submitted to the World Federation of Chiropractic’s Congress in Rio de Janeiro next year, on the applied kinesiology assessment and treatment of 21 patients with urinary incontinence (UI) is also in process of review.

Titled: Conservative Management of Urinary Incontinence: A Case Series Report.

The design and creation of the George J. Goodheart, Jr. portrait bust for Palmer Chiropractic College was completed.

Dr. Shaun Craig with Goodheart Bust

A paper comparing the muscular system assessment methods of Dr. Goodheart to Dr. Vladimir Janda's methods was published in Dynamic Chiropractic, titled Muscle Imbalance: The Goodheart and Janda Models. Available at: http://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=54578

A much broader discussion of this subject will be in the next volume of the applied kinesiology textbook, tentatively titled:

Applied Kinesiology Volume IV:

Clinical Techniques for Lower Body Dysfunctions -- Developments in Goodheart’s Approach

This book has been an intense focus of my activity for the past 2 years and is developing well. If the gods favor me, the book should be ready for submission to its publisher in 2012.

Asher Brown Durand, Kindred Spirits (1849)

Dr. Scott's tribute to David S. Walther, DC, founder of the Chiropractic Health Center

Remembering Dr. David S. Walther

Author of essential textbooks about applied kinesiology.

Dr. David Walther, a 1959 graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic and one of the most prolific writer-researchers in the chiropractic profession, passed away peacefully in his sleep on Sept

10, 2008. With Jeanne, his beloved wife and publishing partner for 44 years, Dr. Walther’s writings and teachings about applied kinesiology (AK) crossed the globe, influencing thousands of DCs.


His father and mother (Norman and Rose Walther) were both chiropractors who met and married at Palmer in 1926. David graduated in 1959 at the end of B.J. Palmer’s career there, and was the chairman of the Delta Sigma Chi fraternity.

Shortly after starting practice with his father in Pueblo, Colo., Dr. Walther chaired the education committee of the Colorado Chiropractic Association (CCA). It was during this period that he first invited Dr. George J. Goodheart Jr. to lecture on the topic of manual muscle testing and grew fascinated with the increased possibilities for chiropractic diagnosis using Goodheart’s methods.

David S. Walther, DC, DIBAK

 Prior to teaching AK, Walther was active in the two Colorado chiropractic organizations, and from his second year in practice served on the board of directors or as an officer of one of them. From 1970-1971, Walther and a handful of his colleagues worked to get the two organizations (one a mixer, the other straight) to form a unified group. One of the things of which he was most proud was his selection as the first president of the combined organization, which is now the CCA. He received the CCA Outstanding Service Award in 1967 and 1976, and the Chiropractor of the Year Award in 1973.

In 1976, Dr. Walther resigned from all management activities with the CCA to devote more time to developing educational materials on AK. He became an avid practitioner of AK and a philosopher, researcher, encyclopedist and educator of its possibilities for patient health care. His chiropractic library was one of the largest in the world in private hands. Dr. Walther donated much of it to Dr. Scott Cuthbert, who bought the Chiropractic Health Center, PC, from him. Dr. Walther left the completion of his textbooks on applied kinesiology to Dr. Scott as well.

The first text Dr. Walther wrote on AK, Applied Kinesiology – The Advanced Approach in Chiropractic, was published in 1976, and all certified teachers of AK immediately began using it as the recommended text. Programmed instruction workbooks accompanied the initial text, and Walther produced more than 10,000 slides as part of the audiovisual instruction program for AK teachers around the world. He was the primary developer of the 100-hour basic course syllabus adopted by the International College of Applied Kinesiology (ICAK).

Walther’s second text, Applied Kinesiology, Volume 1 – Basic Procedures and Muscle Testing (1981), covers the basic procedures of AK and introduced the breadth of MMT procedures to the chiropractic profession and the world. Applied Kinesiology,Volume II – Head, Neck, and Jaw Pain and Dysfunction, The Stomatognathic System (1983) was his third book on AK, covering the cranialsacral primary respiratory system. The use of the MMT in cranial therapy added another examination tool for the discovery of disorders in this subtle and complex system.

Dr. Walther also wrote chapters in several dental textbooks on the examination and treatment of the stomatognathic system, which includes the cranium, temporomandibular joint and cervical spine, how these structures influence the rest of the body and how the rest of the body influences it. This text is used by many dentists and has helped develop closer relationships between dentists and chiropractors.



Dr. Joe Keating, in his book Toward a Philosophy of the Science of Chiropractic (1992), cited Walther’s textbooks on AK as classics of the chiropractic clinical literature. Based on sales, it is estimated that approximately half of the practicing chiropractic profession has his basic textbook on AK.

Dr. Walther wrote each of these seminal texts while maintaining a thriving practice in Pueblo. At the time of his passing, he was working on three additional textbooks in the series: Volume III, on the meridian system; Volume IV, on orthopedic conditions; and Volume V, on systemic conditions. Dr. Scott is rewriting the notes Dr. Walther prepared for each of these books (begun in the 1980s) for publication in the future.



Because each textbook took him several years to complete, Walther’s Applied Kinesiology: Synopsis, covering each of the subject areas in the texts, was published in 1988, with a second edition in 2000. These textbooks on AK chiropractic technique have been translated into Italian, Korean, French and German. The Chukyo College of Chiropractic in Nagoya, Japan, translated his textbooks into Japanese.
Dr. Walther’s ability to resume his chiropractic clinical writing even after the busiest days and most distracting interruptions in the clinic was one of his great qualities as a chiropractic clinician-scientist. To resume work on his textbooks was almost a natural act for him because for 49 years, what he wanted most in the world was to work with the sick and teach others how to do it better.

Walther reveled in the process of patient education and wrote more than 61 patient education pamphlets for many of the conditions chiropractors face in their practices. These pamphlets (distributed by his publishing company, Systems DC) are in the offices of doctors around the world, educating patients on the full scope of chiropractic practice.

One of Dr. Walther’s major efforts was to integrate the new material developed in AK with the standard database of knowledge in anatomy, physiology, and accepted examination procedures. His work mainstreamed many of the procedures developed by Goodheart and the ICAK community, as evidenced by the presence of his textbooks in so many chiropractic and CAM college bookstores and libraries around the world.

Walther’s knowledge and abilities were recognized by the fact that he was invited to write chapters for a number of textbooks, including Principles and Practice of Manual Therapeutics: Medical Guides to Complementary & Alternative Medicine (published in 2002), New Concepts in Craniomandibular and Chronic Pain Management (1994), and Holistic Medicine (1982).

VOICE (the Voluntary Organization of Independent Chiropractic Educators) made Dr. Walther a charter member in 1978 because he was an “eminent and recognized chiropractic independent researcher and educator” in teaching postgraduate continuing education programs. He was a trustee of the Foundation for Allied Conservative Therapies Research and was also honored with The Fullness of Life Foundation’s Humanitarian Award.

From the mid-1970s to late 1980s, Walther lectured about AK throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan. His seminars with Dr. Goodheart introduced AK to Japan and throughout Europe. He also lectured at a number of Parker Chiropractic Research Foundation
seminars on a regular basis for five years in the 1980s and was Parker’s Chiropractor of the Year in 1981. He served on the board of directors of the ICAK-USA from 1976 until 1999.

Walther was also a truly brilliant mechanic, built a Cybex II dynamometer and purchased considerable equipment like the mandibular kinesiograph to help evaluate what we are doing with AK procedures. From this equipment, considerable information was added to his textbooks.

I had the privilege of working with David during the final nine years of his life in our clinic in Pueblo. He was always the master clinician, and I experienced the incessant productivity and clinical brilliance of his mind in daily chiropractic life and care through his example. Through David Walther, I learned that AK is not a separate part of the work of D.D. Palmer. Rather, it is an integrated component within the science of chiropractic. Dr. Walther taught countless thousands of doctors and potentially millions of patients that AK is the living application of the science of chiropractic.

 Due to Walther’s efforts, applied kinesiology was presented to the world in a way that many more people could understand and use.  In his final years, I felt sure David could see what a massive contribution to the health and welfare of the world his life’s work had been.  The chiropractic profession will be forever indebted to this unique individual for the many ways he enhanced the health care field. Rest in peace, David Walther, and thank you for everything you have given us.

Historical Pictures from Dr. Walther's life and practice in Pueblo, Colorado

Dr. Walther and Dr. Goodheart with their wives in Japan
lecturing about applied kinesiology

Young David Walther (8 years old!)
sitting on the first car that he built by hand

Dr. Walther with his mother and father and brother
(David's mother and father were both chiropractors!)



The Cybex II Dynamometer at the
Chiropractic Health Center



Dr. Walther's research helped him understand what we are
achieving in patients using applied kinesiology methods. The
information from this research went into research papers
and into the textbooks on applied kinesiology

Dr. Walther first began practice in Pueblo, CO
with his father Norman in 1959. He studied with
his father for 7 years before buying the
Chiropractic Health Center, PC



David and his beloved wife Jeanne on a cruise



Chiropractic Health Center, PC makes donation to Palmer Chiropractic College