Most of the people we see are locals: working, training, raising kids, getting on with things. They come in because something has started getting in the way, and they’d rather deal with it properly than keep working around it.
How we think about your spine
Most people are told that the changes showing up in their spine are just part of getting older. Wear and tear. Nothing to be done.
I’ve never found that a satisfying answer.
Joints adapt to how they’re loaded. Load them well and they hold up. Load them poorly — awkwardly, repeatedly, for years — and they change shape in response. That process is gradual and it’s usually quiet, which is why the first sign of it is often pain that seems to arrive out of nowhere after a decade of nothing.
So when you come in, the first question isn’t only what hurts. It’s how is this spine moving, and how has it been loaded over time? Sometimes the answer explains why the same shoulder keeps flaring, or why the back that was fine for fifteen years isn’t anymore.
That’s a different starting point from settling the current episode and sending you on your way. It takes a little longer to explain and it’s a more honest picture of what’s going on.
We work from a straightforward idea: health is something you build, not simply the absence of a problem. The aim is a spine that moves and loads well enough to keep up with the life you actually want — not just one that’s stopped hurting for now.
Your spine talks to your brain
Here’s the part most people haven’t heard.
Your spine isn’t only structural. It’s one of the densest sources of sensory information your brain has. Every joint is packed with receptors reporting position, movement and load, and your brain uses that stream constantly — to know where your body is, to coordinate movement, to decide how much muscle to recruit and when.
When a segment isn’t moving the way it should, that signal changes. Not silenced, but distorted. And a brain working from a distorted map makes slightly worse decisions about movement: timing that’s a fraction off, muscles that don’t fire quite as they should, coordination that feels subtly wrong before anything actually hurts.
A growing body of research has looked at what happens to that signal after an adjustment. Studies measuring brain activity have found short-term changes in how the brain processes sensory information from the body, and in how it drives muscle — suggesting an adjustment may do more than move a joint. It may change the quality of information the joint is sending.
Being straight about the evidence
This work is genuinely interesting and still developing. Most studies are small, most measure immediate effects rather than long-term ones, and they show changes in how the nervous system is behaving — not proof of specific health outcomes. I’ll happily talk you through where the research is solid and where it’s still an open question.
What it does explain is something I see constantly in practice: why people describe feeling more coordinated or steadier after care, in ways that have little to do with pain levels. And it’s a good reason to take movement quality seriously, rather than waiting for pain to be the only thing worth acting on.
Dr Matthew Schmerl
I grew up interested in two things: sport, and how the body works. In grade six I learned human anatomy for the first time and found it genuinely astonishing — the engineering of it, how much is going on that we never notice.
That interest turned into six years of study. A Bachelor of Science majoring in Anatomy at the University of Queensland, then a Master of Chiropractic at Macquarie University in Sydney.
The anatomy degree came first, and I think it shaped how I practise. Before I learned to treat a spine, I spent three years learning how one is built — how load travels through it, how the structures relate, what changes when one part stops doing its share. That’s still how I approach an examination.
After qualifying, I spent seven years practising in Glasgow, Scotland, before coming back to found Vitalign in West End in 2012 — the kind of practice I’d want to be a patient at: unhurried, clear about what’s happening, honest about what a course of care can and can’t do.
Qualifications
- Bachelor of Science (Anatomy) — University of Queensland
- Master of Chiropractic — Macquarie University, Sydney
- Dean’s Commendation for Academic Excellence — University of Queensland
Registration and memberships
- Ahpra registered chiropractor — CHI0000992555
- Member, Australian Spinal Research Foundation
- WorkCover Queensland and Department of Veterans’ Affairs provider
The team
You’ll meet Aoife before you meet me. She runs the front of the practice — bookings, health fund claims, WorkCover and DVA paperwork — and she’s the one who’ll sort out anything administrative so you don’t have to think about it.
What we have here
Four things, under one roof, so a plan doesn’t mean being sent across town.
- Chiropractic adjustments — precise, specific to what the examination shows.
- Cold laser therapy — used alongside adjustments where it’s appropriate.
- Spinal decompression — for particular presentations where offloading a segment is part of the plan.
- PowerPlate — whole-body vibration training, used for the loading and strengthening side of care.
Which of these you’d use, if any, depends entirely on what we find. Not everyone needs all four.
Coming in
A first visit takes about 30 minutes: history, examination, and a clear explanation of what we’ve found and what we’d suggest. If chiropractic isn’t the right answer for what’s going on, I’ll tell you that and point you somewhere more useful.
We take new patients Monday to Thursday. Booking online takes about a minute, and all health funds can be claimed on the spot.