Novaré Injury Care and Rehab Explains Chiropractic Screening Steps

Fort Myers, Florida – September 21, 2026 – PRESSADVANTAGE –

Florida’s highway safety agency devotes August to child and teen road safety, a period that coincides with the return of the state’s youngest and least experienced drivers to daily road use. Novaré Injury Care and Rehab is using that window to describe a distinction that shapes how a collision is screened in a clinical setting: whether the occupant saw the impact coming.

The difference is mechanical rather than emotional. A driver who watches a collision develop in the mirror typically braces. Hands grip, the neck stiffens, the torso pushes back into the seat, and muscle tension distributes some of the load. A driver looking at a phone, a navigation screen, or a passenger does none of that. The body is relaxed and unprepared, the head may be turned or tilted away from the direction of travel, and the load arrives without any of that distribution.

That is why an intake interview asks questions that seem tangential. Where the eyes were, whether the head was turned, whether the occupant remembers bracing, whether the headrest was positioned behind the head or below it. Two collisions with identical vehicle damage can present differently depending on those answers, and the answers are far more reliable in the first week than in the second month.

The screening itself follows the same logic. Range of motion is assessed in each plane rather than generally, because a rotated head position at the moment of impact can produce a pattern that differs from a straight-ahead one. Palpation looks for asymmetry. Orthopaedic and neurological screening is performed where indicated. Everything found is recorded with the date, and everything not found is recorded as well. Novaré Injury Care and Rehab sets out its chiropractic services at novareinjurycare.com/chiropractic.

“The first question is not where it hurts, it is what you were doing when it happened,” said Dr. Ivan Bracic, DC, founder and clinical director of Novaré Injury Care and Rehab. “Someone who braced and someone who never looked up are two different examinations, even if the two cars look the same in the parking lot. That detail is sharp in the first week and vague by the second month, which is the whole argument for coming in early.”

The clinic notes that this applies equally when the patient was the distracted party, and that the intake is not an exercise in assigning fault. A clinician records what the body experienced. Determination of responsibility happens elsewhere, and patients occasionally withhold the detail that matters most out of embarrassment about how the collision occurred.

For families with a newly licensed driver in the household, the practical prompt is the same one safety agencies make every August. Phones belong out of reach rather than face down in a cupholder, and a new driver benefits from an explicit household expectation rather than a general one. Where a collision does happen, the clinic’s position is that an examination in the first days is worth more than one in the second month, both for the record and for the accuracy of the history. Manual therapy is among the services that may follow a screening depending on findings, described at novareinjurycare.com/manual-therapy.

Headrest position is the detail the clinic finds most commonly overlooked. A head restraint set low enough to sit behind the neck rather than behind the head changes what a rear impact does to an unbraced occupant, and it is adjustable in most vehicles in a few seconds. Checking it in every car a teenager drives is a small habit with a clear rationale.

Families in Fort Myers, Lehigh Acres, and across Lee County can find clinic information and current hours at novareinjurycare.com.

About Novaré Injury Care and Rehab Novaré Injury Care and Rehab is a medically integrated chiropractic and physical rehab clinic in Fort Myers, FL serving auto accident and personal injury patients. Services include chiropractic adjustments, spinal decompression, shockwave therapy, laser treatment, manual therapy, diagnostic imaging, neuropathy treatment, Emsculpt Neo rehab, Emsella, and functional wellness. Sister brand of Novaré Wellness at the shared Summerlin Rd location. Hours: Mon-Fri 8 AM-6 PM.

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For more information about Novarè Medical Corporation, contact the company here:

Novaré Injury Care and Rehab
Dr. Ivan Bracic
(239) 893-2225
office@mynovare.com
15880 Summerlin Rd #114, Fort Myers, FL 33908