One of the most important healthcare developments in the Western societies over the last numerous decades has the rising incorporation of alternative and complementary medicine (CAM) into health profession systems. One of the most well-established CAM form is chiropractic, which is a non-pharmacological medication that focuses on prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of mechanical musculoskeletal system disorders, with a clear emphasis on spine manipulation and manual adjustments. This natural, surgery-free, and drug-free treatment has now persisted and grown worldwide including America, and has been proven to have multiple health benefits including less cost of pharmaceutical medicines., fewer hospital admissions and reduced surgery cases. It is centered upon the understanding that good health partly depends upon the normal functioning of the nervous system.
I this context, chiropractic is derived from Greek word “Chiropraktikos” which means “effective treatment by hand.” It emphasizes the idea that majority of disease processes starts from the inability of the body to adapt to its environment (malfunction of the nervous system). As such, it looks to address this diseases not by use of chemicals or drugs, but by the method of identifying and adjusting the area of musculoskeletal that is functioning improperly. On this background, this paper focuses on Chiropractic alternative therapy in healthcare. The first part will address a brief history of chiropractic while the second section the types of illnesses it treats. The third part will discuss how chiropractic works and some side effects associated with the therapy. Then finally, a concluding paragraph.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Brief history of Chiropractic
While the history of spinal manipulation dates far back to the ancient Greeks physicians and Hippocrates, the discovery of modern chiropractic is associated with Daniel David Palmer in 1895. According to World Health Organization (WHO, 2015), Palmer was a self-proclaimed healer of magnetic, using his hands to restore body energy flow. There was a janitor in the building of his office that was unable to hear for close to seventeen years. One day, Palmer offered help to the janitor, Harvey Lillard, and found a bump in the janitor’s neck when he palpated it. Harvey had gotten the bump while bending. Palmer then placed his hands on the bump and gave it a thrust. As a result, the hearing of Harvey was repaired, and hence chiropractic was discovered. Palmer developed the method and theory of chiropractic from various sources including bonesetting, medical manipulation, and osteopathy, as well as incorporating his unique design aspects. It developed in the US during a time of substantial reformation in medical practice and training (Meeker & Haldeman, 2012).
Types of illnesses treated by Chiropractic Therapy
As Hours (2016) explains, consumers seek chiropractic for various of complaints including back pain, ear infections, headaches, neck pain, infertility, autism, asthma, menstrual issues, better golf swing, injury, and facial pain among others. As Doctor Scott Warner explains in the interview “Headaches are probably one of the most common reasons, back and neck pain, as well as general health issues. We talked about stomach issues, menstrual issues, sinus and allergy problems.” (Edwards, 2015). These common complaints are associated with subluxation and are usually called neuromusculoskeletal (NMS) in the literature of chiropractic. It also helps to treat conditions such as constipation, bedwetting, anxiety, and sleep apnea. In the U.S., these conditions make up to 94 percent of complaints treated by average chiropractor according to a survey by American Chiropractic Association (ACA) 2015 (Hours, 2016).
How Chiropractic Works
Chiropractic is majorly concerned with treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of neuromusculoskeletal system disorders and the effects these disorders have in the system in general. The emphasis is laid on manual techniques such as joint manipulation and adjustment with a special focus on subluxations. In this context, subluxations are the distortion of the structure of the body due to vertebrae misalignment. As a result, the body struggles to function and balance ideally, hence leading to over-working or under-working of the nervous system. Therefore, an organ, tissue or muscle weakens, and further causes general lack of health, thus causing neuromusculoskeletal. As such, chiropractors are specifically trained to locate and correct subluxations in the body (Hours, 2016).
They perform this by aligning the vertebrae through gentle spine adjustments (gently moving the spine bones into place), thereby relieving the pressure that were on the nerve, and allowing the reach of 100 percent nerve energy to the tissues: “our job is to make sure your nervous system is functioning at 100%. So we check spines because most doctors do not check the spine. It is where the brain goes into the spinal cord and through those bones in the back; that is why they are very important because they go out to the entire body. So as chiropractors, we are going to be checking that your spine is in alignment and is functioning properly to make sure there’s no nerve interference,” Doctor Scott Warner (Edwards, 2015).
Before chiropractor performs chiropractic process, they first have to complete diagnostic and assessment. To arrive at the diagnosis, practitioners will require gathering information from the history and physical, orthopedic, and neurologic examinations of a patient (Meeker & Haldeman, 2012). Edwards (2015) adds that this valuation requires much paperwork and the most of the information includes talks about a detailed history of the patient’s concerns and individual problems, along with the history of the family. At this point, doctors perform a specific examination, but besides that, neurological and orthopedic testing can also be done. As such, chiropractors will use x-rays as well as cat scans, MRIs, surface EMGs, and tests of velocity conduction (Edwards, 2015). Doctor Scott adds that “well, one of the things about x-rays is that it gives us a clear picture of the spine, that and MRIs give us all the puzzle pieces we need to see.” According to Meeker and Haldeman (2012), the radiographs are obtained to determine abnormality, instability, joint dysfunction (to determine the nature and site of manipulable subluxations). As such, doctors perform the certain chiropractic adjustments to readjust the bones and get the joints and the body as whole to function 100 percent (Edwards, 2015).
Chiropractic has been associated with some benefits such as fewer hospital days and admissions, less outpatient surgeries and pharmaceutical costs. However, it has also been linked to having some mild and short-lasting side effects like painful reactions, palpitations, nausea, tremor, epigastric pain, and perspiration over axilla and trunk. This was supported by research which indicated that close to one-third of therapeutic encounters of chiropractic reported having resulted in unpleasant reactions like a headache, tiredness, and pain, but this effects appeared to be mild, and no severe episodes were recorded. (Hours, 2016).
Chiropractic has been proved to be a beneficial form of complementary and alternative medicine. It has many benefits and being that it drug-free that makes it a better, less costly and safer alternative compared to pharmacological interventions. Also, its side effects are benign and last for only a short period which may not worsen the condition of patients. Therefore, this method of treatment should be adopted and familiarized with patients who may require therapy of neuromusculoskeletal system disorders.
References
Edwards, J. (2015). An interview with a chiropractor. Organic lifestyle magazine . Retrieved April 19, 2018 from http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com/an-interview-with-a-chiropractor
Hours, W. I. (2016). Chiropractic Health Newsletter.
Meeker, W. C., & Haldeman, S. (2012). Chiropractic: a profession at the crossroads of mainstream and alternative medicine. Annals of internal medicine , 136 (3), 216-227.
World Health Organization. (2015). WHO guidelines on basic training and safety in chiropractic.
