neuro rehabilitation chiropractor

in melbourne

MEET DR TONY BRIGGS

• Holistic Chiropractor
• Functional Neuro Rehabilitation Chiropractor (FNOR)
• Certified Lifestyle Medicine Professional
• Critical Care Nurse
• Member of the Australian Chiropractic Association
  

I began my career in critical care nursing , working across intensive care units, cardiac catheter labs and anaesthetics. Those environments taught me fast that the symptom you can see is rarely the whole picture, and that the nervous system is almost always involved in what is going wrong beneath the surface.

Over time, I kept seeing the same pattern. People were being treated for what was showing up, not for why it was happening in the first place. They went through rounds of the same care, experienced temporary relief, and kept coming back no better than before. That bothered me enough to go looking for a more effective approach.

That search led me to chiropractic, then into advanced Functional Neurology training through the Carrick Institute in the United States, one of the world's leading institutions in neurological rehabilitation. I completed all six modules of Functional Neuro Orthopedic Rehabilitation (FNOR), integrating clinical neurology and orthopaedics to address both acute and chronic presentations. Additional training in gait, running and movement analysis added further depth to my ability to identify the neurological and biomechanical drivers of pain, imbalance and reduced performance.

I also hold certification in Lifestyle Medicine, because the research is clear that sleep, nutrition, movement and stress are not secondary considerations. They are neurological inputs that directly affect how the brain functions and how quickly you recover.

The principle that sits at the centre of everything I do: when the brain and nervous system are not integrating information efficiently, the body compensates, and those compensations are where your symptoms live. If your address the compensation without addressing the driver, and the problem comes back.

People I work with

Most people who come to see me have already been through the system and are fed up with it. They have had imaging, tried psychology, physio and chiropractic, rested when told to rest, pushed through when told to push through and they are still not right.

If you are still struggling with persistent dizziness that comes and goes without explanation, or chronic pain that has outlasted every treatment, know that it is not your fault. Fatigue, brain fog, balance problems, insomnia and loss of confidence are just some of the indicators that the root cause is likely neurological and needs specialist care and a holistic approach to treatment.

In our sessions you will be thoroughly assessed and treated to ensure you get the relief and results you deserve. When the right pieces are finally connected, things can shift faster than you expect.

What to expect from your first appointment and Neuro assessment

Your first appointment is 60 to 90 minutes. I need that time to really understand what is going on with you, and everything we do after that is based on what we find. I treat every person with respect and take time to listen to your story and experience, because that is where the root cause lives. Rushed assessments dismiss the person and miss the point entirely.



You will leave knowing exactly what is going on, what has been driving your symptoms, what needs to happen and a realistic timeline for getting there. I will put together a personalised care plan that evolves as you progress and we will shape it together so it actually fits your life. You are a real person and in my sessions you will be treated as such. The reason my clients get results where others don't is the time I take, the way I listen and the care I bring to really feeling into your experience. That is what allows me to get to the actual problem and help you make changes that last.

My Brain First Approach™

What it is, how it works, and why it gets results when other approaches have not

Your brain is in constant two-way communication with every part of your body. Every second, it receives millions of signals from your joints, muscles, inner ear, eyes, skin and organs, processes all of that information centrally, and sends precise instructions back out. When this system is working as it should, you feel well, you move without thinking, your energy is stable, pain is appropriate and proportionate, and your body recovers efficiently when it needs to.

When something disrupts that communication, a concussion, a whiplash injury, a viral illness, prolonged stress, chronic sleep deprivation or a structural problem in the spine, the brain starts to misread or fail to process signals accurately. It no longer has a reliable picture of what the body is doing, so it compensates. It redistributes load to other muscles, alters movement patterns, dials pain signals up incorrectly, and dysregulates the systems that control heart rate, digestion, and nervous system balance.

These compensations build over time. And the longer they remain unaddressed, the more the nervous system treats them as normal. That is when symptoms become persistent, confusing, and resistant to standard treatment, because standard treatment is addressing the compensation, not the driver that created it.

My Brain First approach changes the starting point. Rather than beginning with your symptom and working backwards, I start by assessing how your nervous system is actually functioning, which pathways are underperforming, which systems are compensating, and where the breakdown in brain-body communication is occurring. This requires a different kind of assessment, one that goes beyond X-rays and orthopaedic testing to include neurological, balance, vestibular and movement analysis.

Once I have that neurological picture, care becomes targeted in a way that generic treatment simply cannot be. My goal is not to reduce your pain score at the next appointment. My goal is to restore how your brain and body communicate, so that your nervous system stops maintaining the problem, and your body can actually get on with recovering. That distinction is the difference between managing a chronic condition and resolving one.

Why standard treatment often falls short

 and what changes with a neurological approach

My balance reset Method™

A structured neurological approach to restoring balance from the inside out

The Balance Reset Method™ is a structured neurological rehabilitation approach I have created and use to address how the brain processes and integrates the three systems responsible for balance, the vestibular system (inner ear), vision, and proprioception (body position awareness).

When these systems are not communicating efficiently with the brain, the result is not simply unsteadiness. It produces a cascade of symptoms that can look very different from person to person, dizziness and vertigo in some, debilitating fatigue in others, chronic headaches and migraines, brain fog, reduced coordination, or a general sense that something is wrong that no one has been able to explain.

The Balance Reset Method™ targets the neurological root of these symptoms, I identify which of the three balance systems is underperforming or miscommunicating, then use specific rehabilitation techniques to retrain how your brain integrates that input. Rather than treating the dizziness or the headache directly, I correct the processing error that is producing them.

I use this approach across a wide range of presentations, from acute post-concussion recovery through to complex chronic conditions like POTS and dysautonomia, where the autonomic nervous system's failure to regulate basic functions is often rooted in exactly this kind of neurological miscommunication.

Take the first step toward finally feeling like yourself again