Cervical Manipulation

Tensile Force On Vertebral Artery During Adjustments & Exercising For Pain

CF 257: Tensile Force On Vertebral Artery During Adjustments & Exercising For Pain Today we’re going to talk about Tensile Force On Vertebral Artery During Adjustments & Exercising For Pain But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music

Purchase Dr. Williams’s book, a perfect educational tool and chiropractic research reference for the daily practitioner, from the Amazon store TODAY!

Chiropractic evidence-based products

Integrating Chiropractors

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OK, we are back and you have found the Chiropractic Forward Podcast where we are making evidence-based chiropractic fun, profitable, and accessible while we make you and your patients better all the way around.  We’re the fun kind of research. Not the stuffy, high-brow, look down your nose at people kind of research. We’re research talk over a couple of beers. I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.  I’m so glad you’re spending your time with us learning together.  Chiropractors – I’m hiring at my personal clinic. I need talent, ambition, drive, smart, and easy to get along with associates. If this is you and Amarillo, TX is your speed, send me an email at creekstonecare@gmail.com If you haven’t yet I have a few things you should do. 

  • Go to Amazon and check our my book called The Remarkable Truth About Chiropractic: A Unique Journey Into The Research. It’s excellent educational resource for you AND your patients. It saves you time putting talks together or just staying current on research. It’s categorized into sections so the information is easy to find and written in a way that is easy to understand for everyone. It’s on Amazon. That’s the Remarkable Truth About Chiropractic by Jeff Williams. 
  • Then go Like our Chiropractic Forward Facebook page, 
  • Join our private Chiropractic Forward Facebook group, and then 
  • Review our podcast on whatever platform you’re listening to 
  • Last thing real quick, we also have an evidence-based brochure and poster store at chiropracticforward.com

You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #257 Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about Aspirin And Fall Risk & Caffeine And Child Growth. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class. 

On the personal end of things….. What’s going on with me lately? Well, still riding some inflation and recession stuff here these last two months and working on marketing and my customer experience to right the ship as quickly as possible. My trip to Florida and Thanksgiving are playing hell with some of the recoveries but that is what it is and that’s OK. That’s life. 

One of the things we started last week was ‘Your benefits re-start in January so use them while you have them.” Also, am I in too big of a hurry with patients?

Do they feel my need to be in and out or do they each feel special in some way? I am trying to slow down and be more present with each patient. More interested in them and in their story.  We can always blame outward forces when our practices slow up a bit. And that’s legit. You have to consider all aspects. Is it the economy? My website SEO? Inflation? What is the outward cause?

But also, what are the potential in-house causes? Am I too rushed? Am I no longer focused on the customer experience and only focusing on all of my stuff that has to be done instead? Is there something going on with our new patient process and our booking procedures?  Internally, have we changed anything about how we are functioning and doing things? Let’s review how we’re doing things and let’s figure it out. That’s what I’m looking at right now.

No coach or mastermind has all of the answers to a slowdown. It is up to us as business owners to diagnose the cause and the effect. At least to the best of our abilities.  I’m not dramatically slower than in August but September and October and November have been slow enough compared to my regular load that it’s past time to get it fixed and headed back in the right direction. 

And that includes looking in the mirror. We should all do that. A good leader doesn’t ask where the staff failed, but asks, where have I failed.  That’s what I’m doing. 

Also, I’m looking at where I can delegate tasks that have put me in a hurry most days. When I can’t keep up with stuff, it’s time to figure out how to farm out stuff so that I don’t feel rushed and overwhelmed all day every day.  I’m an immaculate stat keeper. That’s about to change. I have an excellent virtual assistant in Nigeria that is helping me figure out how to automate and delegate balancing bank statements, which I still do myself and stat keeping.

This will save A LOT of time on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays freeing my brain up to work on more productive tasks like the customer experience.  Alright, enough introspective discovery for this week. Onto the research. 

Item #1

The first on today is called, “Vertebral arteries do not experience tensile force during manual cervical spine manipulation applied to human cadavers” by Gorrell et. al. (Gorrell LM 2022) and published in Journal of Manual Manipulativer Therapy on November 15, 2022. Dayum. That’s hot. 

Why They Did It The vertebral artery (VA) may be stretched and subsequently damaged during manual cervical spine manipulation. The objective of this study was to measure vertebral artery length changes that occur during cervical spine manipulation and to compare these to the vertebral artery failure length.

How They Did It

  • Piezoelectric ultrasound crystals were implanted along the length of the VA (C1 to C7) and were used to measure length changes during cervical spine manipulation of seven un-embalmed, post-rigor human cadavers. 
  • Arteries were then excised, and elongation from arbitrary in-situ head/neck positions to first force (0.1 N) was measured. Following this, vertebral arteries were stretched (8.33 mm/s) to mechanical failure. 
  • Failure was defined as the instance when VA elongation resulted in a decrease in force.

What They Found

  • From arbitrary in-situ head/neck positions, the greatest average vertebral artery length change during spinal manipulation was 5.1%. 
  • From arbitrary in-situ head/neck positions, arteries were elongated on average 33.5% prior to first force occurrence and 51.3% to failure. 
  • Average failure forces were 3.4 N

Wrap It Up

Measured in arbitrary in-situ head/neck positions, vertebral arteries were slack. It appears that this slack must be taken up prior to vertebral arteries experiencing tensile force.  During cervical spine manipulations (using cervical spine extension and rotation), arterial length changes remained below that slack length, suggesting that VA elongated but were not stretched during the manipulation.  Before getting to the next one, Next thing, go to https://www.tecnobody.com/en/products That’s Tecnobody as in T-E-C-nobody.

They literally have the most impressive clinical equipment I’ve ever seen. I own the ISO Free and am looking to add more to my office this year or next. The equipment you’re going to find over there can be marketed in your community like crazy because you’ll be the only one with something that damn cool in your office.  When you decide you can’t live without those products, send me an email and I’ll give you the hookup. They will 100% differentiate your clinic from your competitors. I have to tell you, Dr. Chris Howson, the inventor of the Drop Release tool re-activated the code! Use the code HOTSTUFF upon purchase at droprelease.com & get $50 off your purchase. Would you like to spend 5-10 minutes doing pin and stretch and all of that? Or would you rather use a drop release to get the same or similar results in just a handful of seconds. I love it, my patients love it, and I know yours will too. droprelease.com and the discount code is HOTSTUFF. Go do it.

Item #2

Our last one this week is called, “The Relationship Between Physical Activity and Pain in U.S. Adults” by Ray et. al. (Ray 2022) and published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise on October 26, 2022. Hot potato!

Why They Did It The authors wanted to assess the relationship between physical activity (PA) and pain within the available sample, with secondary aims to assess prevalence of pain, physical activity levels, healthcare seeking behaviors, and impact of pain on daily activities and work.

How They Did It They conducted an epidemiological cross-sectional observational study utilizing National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data from 2020.  They examined the self-reported adherence to current physical activity guidelines and the prevalence of pain.  They hypothesized those dealing with pain were less likely to meet physical activity guidelines. physical activity levels, pain prevalence, frequency, and intensity were assessed via the survey and relationships explored via modeling.

What They Found

  • 31,568, subjects
  • 12,429 (39.37%) reported pain on some days, 2,761 (8.75%) on most days, and 4,661 (14.76%) every day. 
  • The odds of engaging in physical activity decreased in a stepwise fashion based on frequency and intensity of pain reporting when compared to no pain. 
  • Importantly, physical activity is a significant correlate affecting pain reporting, with individuals engaging in physical activity (strength and aerobic) demonstrating 2 times lower odds of reporting pain when compared to those not meeting the physical activity guidelines.

Wrap It Up

There is a significant correlation between meeting physical activity guidelines and pain. Meeting both criteria of physical activity guidelines resulted in lower odds of reporting pain. Additionally, the odds of participating in physical activity decreased based on pain frequency reporting.

These are important findings for clinicians, highlighting the need for assessing physical activity not only for those dealing with pain but as a potential risk factor for minimizing the development of chronic pain. Get ‘em moving folks!

Alright, that’s it. Keep on keepin’ on. Keep changing our profession from your corner of the world. The world needs evidence-based, patient-centered practitioners driving the bus. The profession needs us in the ACA and involved in leadership of state associations. So quit griping about the profession if you’re doing nothing to make it better. Get active, get involved, and make it happen. Let’s get to the message. Same as it is every week.  Store Remember the evidence-informed brochures and posters at chiropracticforward.com.     

Purchase Dr. Williams’s book, a perfect educational tool and chiropractic research reference for the daily practitioner, from the Amazon store TODAY!

Chiropractic evidence-based products

Integrating Chiropractors

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This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Screen-Shot-2018-07-12-at-10.23.09-AM-150x55.jpg

The Message I want you to know with absolute certainty that when Chiropractic is at its best, you can’t beat the risk vs reward ratio because spinal pain is primarily a movement-related pain and typically responds better to movement-related treatment rather than chemical treatments like pills and shots. When compared to the traditional medical model, research and clinical experience show us patients can get good to excellent results for headaches, neck pain, back pain, and joint pain to name just a few. It’s safe and cost-effective can decrease surgeries & disability and we do it through conservative, non-surgical means with minimal hassle to the patient. And, if the patient treats preventatively after initial recovery, we can usually keep it that way while raising the overall level of health!

Key Point: At the end of the day, patients should have the guarantee of having the best treatment that offers the least harm. When it comes to non-complicated musculoskeletal complaints…. That’s Chiropractic!

Contact Send us an email at dr dot williams at chiropracticforward.com and let us know what you think of our show and tell us your suggestions for future episodes.  Feedback and constructive criticism is a blessing and so are subscribes and excellent reviews on podcast platforms.  We know how this works by now. If you value something, you have to share it, interact with it, review it, talk about it from time to time, and actively hit a few buttons to support it here and there when asked. It really does make a big difference. 

Connect We can’t wait to connect with you again next week. From the Chiropractic Forward Podcast flight deck, this is Dr. Jeff Williams saying upward, onward, and forward.

Website https://www.chiropracticforward.com

Social Media Links https://www.facebook.com/chiropracticforward/

Chiropractic Forward Podcast Facebook GROUP https://www.facebook.com/groups/1938461399501889/

Twitter https://twitter.com/Chiro_Forward

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtc-IrhlK19hWlhaOGld76Q iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing/id1331554445?mt=2

Player FM Link https://player.fm/series/2291021

Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing-through

TuneIn https://tunein.com/podcasts/Health–Wellness-Podcasts/The-Chiropractic-Forward-Podcast-Chiropractors-Pr-p1089415/

About the Author & Host Dr. Jeff Williams – Fellow of the International Academy of Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine (FIANM) and Board Certified Diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Professionals (DABFP) – Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger  

Bibliography

Gorrell LM, S. A., Edwards WB, Herzog W., (2022). “Vertebral arteries do not experience tensile force during manual cervical spine manipulation applied to human cadavers.” J Man Manip Ther.  

Ray, B. M. K., Kyle J.; Eubanks, James E.; Nan, Nan; Ma, Changxing; Miles, Derek, (2022). “The Relationship Between Physical Activity and Pain in U.S. Adults.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.          

Easy, Cheap Way To Fix Cervical Curvature & SMT For Chronic Neck Pain

CF Ep. 213: Easy, Cheap Way To Fix Cervical Curvature & SMT For Chronic Neck Pain Today we’re going to talk about Easy, Cheap Way To Fix Cervical Curvature & SMT For Chronic Neck Pain But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music    

Purchase Dr. Williams’s book, a perfect educational tool and chiropractic research reference for the daily practitioner, from the Amazon store TODAY!

Chiropractic evidence-based products

Integrating Chiropractors

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OK, we are back and you have found the Chiropractic Forward Podcast where we are making evidence-based chiropractic fun, profitable, and accessible while we make you and your patients better all the way around.  We’re the fun kind of research. Not the stuffy, high-brow kind of research. We’re research talk over a couple of beers. I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.   If you haven’t yet I have a few things you should do. 

  • Go to Amazon and check our my book called The Remarkable Truth About Chiropractic: A Unique Journey Into The Research. It’s a great resource for patient education and for YOU. It saves you time in putting talks together or just staying current on research. It’s categorized into  sections and written in a way that is easy to understand for you and patients. Just search for it on Amazon. That’s the Remarkable Truth About Chiropractic by Jeff Williams. 
  • Then go Like our Facebook page, 
  • Join our private Facebook group, and then 
  • Review our podcast on whatever platform you’re listening to 
  • Last thing real quick, we also have an evidence-based brochure and poster store at chiropracticforward.com

You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #213 Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about Intermittent Fasting & Dementia And Your Level Of Activity. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class. 

On the personal end of things…..

Alright, no…it’s not just you….I’m a little slower than normal right now. For most of us, that’s the nature of the beast. We just slow down in January because most of us take insurance and most of those plans re-set in January. People haven’t met their deductibles. They don’t like to spend their own money.  And that’s OK. Speaking from 24 years of experience, it’s normal and you’ll start seeing it pick back up around mid to late February. Definitely by March.  Like I sadi last week, this is the time that we start playing catch up and taking care of all of the stuff that’s been sitting on the back burner.  So start dusting off that stack on your desk and working through it while you have the time.    I want to be honest. Which I always am. I think I’m in a mid-life crisis. I’m tired of replacing employees. Re-hiring, etc. I’m tired of the same old questions we get from patients. I’m tired of dealing with the day-to-day stuff I’ve dealt with. Some of you will love what you’re doing so much that you’ll want to die in your office at 84 years old working on someone. 

And wouldn’t that be an awful experience for the patient? Just as a side thought. Lol. 

Anyway, that’s not me. When I’m answering the question about why someone’s neck is hurting for the umpteenth time, the call for more freedom of time gets stronger.  And stronger and stronger.  That’s the reason that over the last few years I have started cultivating the side gigs. The exit strategy. Looky here; I write and perform music, I paint, I draw, I play the guitar, I build furniture, I sculpt, I throw the discus and want to compete in old man track meets, and I love spending time with my family and traveling.  So…how the hell do you do all of that while you’re in a clinic all day every day your entire life? The answer is….you don’t. You don’t do the things that feed your soul. You either don’t do them at all, or you don’t do them very often.

Until you’re 65 or so for most people. Well, I don’t plan on being most, folks. So, how do you own the practice instead of the practice owning you? Great question. I don’t know but here are some of the avenues I’m using to try to walk the path. 

  • Specialization and Board Certification
  • Nurse Practitioner
  • Associate chiropractor – If you’re interested in working for me, email me folks. dr.williams@chiropracticforward.com I’m looking. 
  • Real Estate Investing
  • Voice Over
  • Authorship
  • Speaking and Mentoring

In fact, I have a big presentation coming up at the Texas Chiropractic Association’s MidWinter Conference in Lubbock, TX on February 18th. It’s called Chronic Pain And The Upregulated Central Nervous System. I’m in the process of building that talk as we speak.  If that sounds like something your group or association could use, email me at dr.williams@chiropracticforward.com and let’s connect.

I’d love to come present for you and your peeps. 

So, anyway, I do all kinds of things. But those are the biggies.  Get your exit number in place. Even if you’re brand new. You gotta have your loans paid. You gotta have your retirement finances in the process. You gotta have investments working. Once that’s handled, what is the exit number that would make you secure to make your exit.  Or to make a Hybrid Exit. What’s that exactly? A Hybrid Exit would look different for different folks. For one person that might mean treating patients 2 days per week. For others, it might mean strictly being the owner but exiting patient treatment completely. It could mean a million things but, at the price point some of us make per year, it can be difficult to build enough side gig to replace that income.  For me, just looking at the numbers and potential, while keeping risk mitigation in mind, real estate seems the quickest way when you combine that with the clinic integration and hiring an associate chiro. Combining these three may get me there.  Then you throw in this voice-over blessing that I started last year…..wow. That was out of nowhere, was a complete surprise, and an amazing blessing. Voice over, by itself, has more than funded the down payment and the furnishing of our very first short-term rental house and investment I’ve been mentioning more and more recently. 

Let’s be honest though, you don’t have to be in voice-over to invest. You just have to keep the overhead down and save up enough for a downpayment. The rest will take care of itself. And the earlier you start, the faster you get there. I’m 49 and wish I’d had this mentality at 29. Damnit. 

But it’s never too late to start taking better care of your future, your physical health, and your mental health. That’s where I’m at.  I’ll keep updating you. 

Item #1

This first one is called “The Effects of Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment on Pain and Disability in Patients with Chronic Neck Pain: A Single-Blinded Randomized Controlled Trial” by Cholewicki et. al. (Cholewicki J 2021) and published in PM&R on October 31, 2021.

Aye chiwawa!

Why They Did It

Neck pain (NP) affects as much as 70% of individuals at some point in their lives. Systematic reviews indicate that manual treatments can be moderately effective in the management of chronic, nonspecific NP. However, there is a paucity of studies specifically evaluating the efficacy of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT). The authors wanted to evaluate the efficacy of OMT in reducing pain and disability in patients with chronic NP. And I’m glad they are because they’re right, there is a paucity of research on neck pain. Low back gets all the attention while neck pain…..treating neck pain is the main thing we chiros get beat up over. So why the hell not knock out a ton of high-level research on chiro, manipulation, and neck pain while continuing to highlight the low risk of adverse effects for its treatment? Can we finally get past this chiropractors cause strokes issue? Is there increased risk? Sure. But that doesn’t mean we go arounnd causing them. There are bad patients that shouldn’t be worked on and there are bad chiros that are far too rouugh. But for the most part, its not dangerous whatsoever.  Take the UFC for example

How They Did It

  • Single-blinded, cross-over, randomized controlled trial.
  • University-based, osteopathic manipulative medicine outpatient clinic.
  • 97 participants, 21-65 years old, with chronic, nonspecific NP
  • Participants were randomized to two trial arms: immediate OMT intervention or waiting period first. 
  • The intervention consisted of 3-4 OMT sessions over 4-6 weeks, after which the participants switched groups.
  • Primary outcome measures were pain intensity (average and current) on the numerical rating scale and Neck Disability Index.
  • 38 and 37 participants were available for the analysis in the OMT and waiting period groups, respectively

What They Found

  • The results showed significantly better primary outcomes in the immediate OMT group for reductions in average pain, current pain, disability, and improved secondary outcomes related to sleep, fatigue, and depression. 
  • No study-related serious adverse events were reported.

Wrap It Up

OMT is relatively safe and effective in reducing pain and disability along with improving sleep, fatigue, and depression in patients with chronic NP immediately following treatment delivered over approximately 4-6 weeks. One big thing here, this improvement was seen with 3-4 visits over 4-6 weeks. Shouldn’t that have been standardized and consistent from patient to patient? Like 4 visits over 6 weeks for example. Not a range. Next thing, this is about chronic pain. Is 3-4 visits over 4-6 weeks really enough to start addressing the issue of chronic pain? To introduce proprioception, movement, function, and all that good stuff?? No is the answer but, they still showed improvement. I’d love to see the outcomes in a design like this with a more robust and appropriate treatment schedule or frequency. 

Item #2 Thsi one is called “You don’t need expensive CBP BS protocols with biased research done by the stakeholders to entice the 9 out of 10 patients that naturally have a decreased cervical curvature into a 70 visit $5,000 treatment plan to fix a lack of cervical curve that a 20 year research project proved is no big deal anyway.  Oh wait….sorry….check that. The actual title is “Efficacy of Modified Cervical and Shoulder Retraction Exercise in Patients With Loss of Cervical Lordosis and Neck Pain” by Lee et. al. (Lee 2020) and published in Annals of Rehabilitation Medicine on May 29 2020 and it’s hot enough! Sorry for the mistake. I’ll try to pay more attention to the research paper titles. I’m undiagnosed ADD like that. I take the eye off the ball every here and there. I’ll try to tighten that up a bit. 

Anyway

Why They Did It

  • This research was done by medical doctors so there is no chiropractic bias to this lack of curvature research information. 
  • The authors say they wanted to explore if the modified cervical and shoulder retraction exercise program restores cervical lordosis and reduces neck pain in patients with loss of cervical lordosis.

How They Did It

  • This study was a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data. 
  • Eighty-three patients with loss of cervical lordosis were eligible. 
  • The eligible patients were trained to perform the modified cervical and shoulder retraction exercise program by a physiatrist, and were scheduled for a follow-up 6 to 8 weeks later to check the post-exercise pain intensity and lateral radiograph of the cervical spine in a comfortable position. 
  • The parameters of cervical alignment (4-line Cobb’s angle, posterior tangent method, and sagittal vertical axis) were measured from the lateral radiograph.
  • Forty-seven patients were included.
  • The mean age was 48.29±14.47 years

What They Found

  • Cervical alignment and neck pain significantly improved after undergoing the modified cervical and shoulder retraction exercise program. 
  • The upper cervical lordotic angle also significantly improved. 
  • In a subgroup analysis, which involved dividing the patients into two age groups (<50 years and ≥50 years), the change of the sagittal vertical axis was significantly greater in the <50 years group

Wrap It Up

The modified cervical and shoulder retraction exercise program tends to improve cervical lordosis and neck pain in patients with loss of cervical lordosis. So……if we’re evidence-based and patient-centered, we are not taking advantage of others. We don’t see patients as sales targets. We aren’t seeing them as targets to close on. We aren’t seeing them with dollar signs in our eyes.  Rather, we are seeing them as human beings that are in our clinic to place full faith, trust, body, mind, physical well-being, and their entire futures in our hands.

If we are honoring this idea and honoring our patients, we are teaching them about this, we are teaching them about moving, we are teaching them how to self-manage at home, and we are doing what we can within a responsible and appropriate 2-4 treatment plan….give or take.  You know…..being a doctor and doing doctor stuff instead of doing street corner huckster stuff like I see so many fellow chiropractors doing.  It’s sad. We don’t have to put up with it in our profession. We just have to stop ignoring it and start calling it out and not putting up with it. We can run this behavior out of our profession. If we choose to. Alright, that’s it. Keep on keepin’ on. Keep changing our profession from your corner of the world. The world needs evidence-based, patient-centered practitioners driving the bus.

The profession needs us in the ACA and involved in leadership of state associations. So quit griping about the profession if you’re doing nothing to make it better. Get active, get involved, and make it happen. Let’s get to the message. Same as it is every week. 

Store Remember the evidence-informed brochures and posters at chiropracticforward.com.   

Purchase Dr. Williams’s book, a perfect educational tool and chiropractic research reference for the daily practitioner, from the Amazon store TODAY!

Chiropractic evidence-based products

Integrating Chiropractors

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This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Screen-Shot-2018-07-12-at-10.23.33-AM-150x55.jpg

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Screen-Shot-2018-07-12-at-10.23.09-AM-150x55.jpg

The Message I want you to know with absolute certainty that when Chiropractic is at its best, you can’t beat the risk vs reward ratio because spinal pain is primarily a movement-related pain and typically responds better to movement-related treatment rather than chemical treatments like pills and shots. When compared to the traditional medical model, research and clinical experience show us patients can get good to excellent results for headaches, neck pain, back pain, and joint pain to name just a few. It’s safe and cost-effective can decrease surgeries & disability and we do it through conservative, non-surgical means with minimal hassle to the patient. And, if the patient treats preventatively after initial recovery, we can usually keep it that way while raising the overall level of health!

Key Point: At the end of the day, patients should have the guarantee of having the best treatment that offers the least harm. When it comes to non-complicated musculoskeletal complaints…. That’s Chiropractic!

Contact Send us an email at dr dot williams at chiropracticforward.com and let us know what you think of our show and tell us your suggestions for future episodes.  Feedback and constructive criticism is a blessing and so are subscribes and excellent reviews on podcast platforms.  We know how this works by now. If you value something, you have to share it, interact with it, review it, talk about it from time to time, and actively hit a few buttons to support it here and there when asked. It really does make a big difference. 

Connect We can’t wait to connect with you again next week. From the Chiropractic Forward Podcast flight deck, this is Dr. Jeff Williams saying upward, onward, and forward.

Website https://www.chiropracticforward.com

Social Media Links https://www.facebook.com/chiropracticforward/

Chiropractic Forward Podcast Facebook GROUP https://www.facebook.com/groups/1938461399501889/

Twitter https://twitter.com/Chiro_Forward

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtc-IrhlK19hWlhaOGld76Q

iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing/id1331554445?mt=2

Player FM Link https://player.fm/series/2291021

Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-chiropractic-forward-podcast-chiropractors-practicing-through

TuneIn https://tunein.com/podcasts/Health–Wellness-Podcasts/The-Chiropractic-Forward-Podcast-Chiropractors-Pr-p1089415/

About the Author & Host Dr. Jeff Williams – Fellow of the International Academy of Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine (FIANM) and Board Certified Diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Professionals (DABFP) – Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger  

Bibliography

Cholewicki J, P. J., Reeves NP, DeStefano L, (2021). “The Effects of Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment on Pain and Disability in Patients with Chronic Neck Pain: A Single-Blinded Randomized Controlled Trial.”

PM R.   Lee, M., Jeon H, Choi J, Park Y, (2020). “Efficacy of Modified Cervical and Shoulder Retraction Exercise in Patients With Loss of Cervical Lordosis and Neck Pain.” ARM 44: 3.  

Getting Patients Returning, Shoulder Impingement, Cervical Manipulation, & X-rays and Neurodegenerative Disease

CF 133: Getting Patients Returning, Shoulder Impingement, Cervical Manipulation, & X-rays and Neurodegenerative Disease Today we’re going to talk about getting your patients back in your office, we’ll talk about shoulder impingement, cervical manipulation research, and we’ll talk about low dose x-rays being the cause of neurodegenerative disease.  But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music  

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  OK, we are back and you have found the Chiropractic Forward Podcast where we are making evidence-based chiropractic fun, profitable, and accessible while we make you and your patients better all the way around.  We’re the fun kind of research. Not the stuffy, high-brow kind of research. We’re research talk over a couple of beers. I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.   If you haven’t yet I have a few things you should do. 

  • Like our Facebook page, 
  • Join our private Facebook group and interact, and then 
  • go review our podcast on iTunes and other podcast platforms. 
  • We also have an evidence-based brochure and poster store at chiropracticforward.com
  • While you’re there, join our weekly email newsletter. No spam, just a reminder when the newest episodes go live. Nothing special so don’t worry about signing up. Just one a week friends. Check your JUNK folder!!

Do it do it do it.  You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #133 Now if you missed last week’s episode, we talked about giving, we talked about maintenance care, dry needling, and we also talked about vitalism.

Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class. 

While we’re on the topic of being smart, did you know that you can use our website as a resource? Quick and easy, you can go to chiropracticforward.com, click on Episodes, and use the search function to find whatever you want quickly and easily. With over 100 episodes in the tank and an average of 2-3 papers covered per episode, we have somewhere between 250 and 300 papers that can be quickly referenced along with their talking points. 

Just so you know, all of the research we talk about in each episode is cited in the show notes for each episode if you’re looking to dive in a little deeper. 

 

On the personal end of things….. The last two episodes have had a talk about vitalism and all of that. I got red in the face and gripey and some would even say…..disagreeable.  None of that this week. Fun and positivity. I made the mistake of going back to recording the personal part of the podcast….this part of the podcast….two weeks in advance. Well, it bit me in the butt an episode or two back. I should know by now that that damn COVID’s going to change the program. Lol. I said it was looking good and numbers were great and by the time we get to air time, 2 weeks down the road, the roadmap was different and crap was firing up everywhere again.

It sounded silly for it to be firing up everywhere and there I am on a fresh episode talking about how good it’s looking. Lol. So…..I’m not going to mention anything like that again.  Besides, you guys are probably not in the mood to hear more about it anyway. Instead, I’ll tell you that I’m at about 81% of where I want to be. The least I want to see per week is about 180 appointments. Each week. 13 – 15 new patients per week. That’s the LEAST I want to see.  As of this recording, last week I saw 146 and 15 patients.

So, I’m not at 180 yet but I’m more comfortable with my new patient count. Let’s keep that rocking and the other numbers should take care of itself sooner than later. It’s a Monday afternoon and I have 120 on the books. That’s before Wednesday gets booked up, Thursday, and Friday. So, starting a Monday with 120 already booked for the week, that tells me we have a good chance at a continued recovery.  What are your numbers looking like? Is your practice starting to get back to normal and stabilize?

What are you doing to make sure your business survives this mess? I want to hear about it so I can share it with our audience. If you’ll share with us on the Facebook page, in the Facebook group, or by sending me an email at dr.williams@chiropracticforward.com…..I’ll make sure and share with the rest of our listeners. This can be an excellent way to help others that are struggling right now.  Last week I talked about giving. Well, this is a great way to give back to your profession and colleagues that may not be doing as well as we are.  I’ll start.  I doubled down on Social Media Instead of one post a day, we went to 3 per day and 4 per day on the weekends.  We went from just talking about chiropractic to fun posts with a little bit of chiropractic here and there.

About every 4th or 5th post.

We want to entertain. I don’t know that anyone wants to be sold anything right now but, I don’t personally mind commercials or being interrupted if I’m simultaneously being entertained. So that’s what we did. We started entertaining our crowd We asked for people to help us by inviting their friends to our page. And they did! We hit numbers that would have taken us 3 years to build. We hit them in only about 4 days. I was amazed. Just because we asked and, it seems that at this time, more people are willing to help others.  Of course, that’s if they’re not bitching at each other about masks.  I got back to my weekly emails to my patients.

I had fallen off to emailing only once every 3-4 weeks. Now I’m back on a weekly schedule.  I revamped my To-Do list to include everything thing that I need to accomplish every day so I don’t forget or let things lapse. I want to stay on point with getting our message out every day, every week, every month.  I decided to try a professional company for Facebook ads. We still have a lot of really mixed results on that sucker right now so I haven’t talked much about it but I’ll let you know how we do down the road. 

In the meantime, as if I needed something else to occupy my time, I started a voice-over career on the side. Lol. To go along with my sculpting, drawing, and art career. To go along with my furniture building career. Which will go along nicely with my singer/songwriter/guitar-playing career?  Geez….is that the very definition of A.D.D. or what? But yeah, if you need any commercials voiced for you, holler at me. I’m happy to help. 

Back to the office, I got back to doing weekly YouTube videos. Every week like clockwork. That made me get back to writing my own weekly blog. That’s work I used to hire out to a guy in South Africa but I took it back over for a bit and it’s been fun actually.  So, as you can see, I’ve made A LOT of changes to get back on track and get this sucker not just where it was this time last year, but 10% or bigger. Why the hell not? Overall, I have made it a point to highlight what we are doing to help keep them as safe as we can. If COVID is the barrier, then we need to do everything we can to remove that barrier. 

Alright, as I said, you guys and gals send me your suggestions of things you are doing to get your patients back in your clinic. 

Item #1 This first one this week is called ‘Relationship between shoulder impingement syndrome and thoracic posture’ by Hunter et. al.(Hunter D 2020) and published in Physical Therapy journal in April of 2020 and that means that that is one hot son of a mother!!

Why They Did It They say that shoulder impingement is the most common form of shoulder pain and a persistent musculoskeletal problem and that we have had limited success in treating it. They wanted to test whether or not thoracic posture has anything to do with it. 

How They Did It

  • This was a case-control study. 
  • Thoracic posture of 39 participants with shoulder impingement was measure using the modified Cobb angle from a lateral x-ray. 
  • They accounted for age, gender, and dominant arm
  • T-sp range of motion was measured with an inclinometer

What They Found

  • Individuals with shoulder impingement had greater thoracic kyphosis and less active thoracic extension
  • Greater thoracic kyphosis was associated with less extension ROM

Wrap It Up “Individuals with shoulder impingement had a greater thoracic kyphosis and less extension ROM than age- and gender-matched healthy controls. These results suggest that clinicians could consider addressing the thoracic spine in patients with shoulder impingement.”

Item #2 Item #2 this week is called “The Effect of High Velocity Low Amplitude Cervical Manipulations on the Musculoskeletal System: Literature Review” by Giacalone et. al.(Giacalone 2020) published in Cureus in April of 2020 which makes it too hot to handle for me!

Why They Did It They say that cervical manipulative techniques are mostly used for the treatment of biomechanical joint dysfunction, but little is known about possibly using them in order to achieve better performance on a healthy subject

How They Did It

  • A systematic search was carried out on the Pubmed electronic database from the beginning of January to March 2020.
  • Two independent reviewers conducted the screening process through the PRISMA diagram to determine the eligibility of the articles.
  • The inclusion criteria covered randomized controlled trial (RCT) manuscripts published in peer-reviewed journals with individuals of all ages from 2005 to 2020.
  • The included intervention was thrust manipulation or HVLA directed towards the cervical spine region. 
  • After reviewing the literature, 21 of 74 articles were considered useful and relevant to the research question.

What They Found

  • HVLA techniques, on subjects with musculoskeletal disorders, are able to influence pain modulation, mobility, and strength both in the treated area and at a distance.
  • Cervical manipulations are effective in the management of cervicalgia, epicondylalgia, temporomandibular joint disorders, and shoulder pain.
  • With regard to results on strength in healthy subjects, given the divergent opinions of the authors, we cannot yet state that manipulation can significantly influence this parameter.

Item #3 Our last one is called ‘Low-dose x-ray imaging may increase the risk of neurodegenerative diseases’ by Caroline Rodgers(Rodgers C 2020) and published in Medical Hypotheses in April of 2020…..look at April…..not just bringing us COVID…but also bringing us a bunch of plates of steamy hot stuff. 

As the journal says, this is a hypothesis. The hypothesis presented in this paper explores the possibility that X-ray imaging commonly used in dental practices may be a shared risk factor for sporadic dementias and motor-neuron diseases. As the evidence will suggest, the brain is ill-equipped to manage the intrusion of low-dose ionizing radiation (IR) beyond that which is naturally occurring.

When the brain’s antioxidant defenses are overwhelmed by IR, it produces an abundance of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that can lead to oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, loss of synaptic plasticity, altered neuronal structure and microvascular impairment that have been identified as early signs of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, vascular dementia and other diseases that progressively damage the brain and central nervous system.

Common assumptions regarding the risks of low-dose IR will be addressed, such as 1) comparing rapid, repeated bursts of man-made IR sent exclusively into the head to equivalent amounts of head-to-toe background IR over longer periods of time; 2) whether epidemiological studies that dismiss concerns regarding low-dose IR due to lack of evidence it causes cancer, heritable mutations or shortened life spans also apply to neurodegeneration; and 3) why even radiation-resistant neurons can be severely impacted by IR exposure, due to IR-induced injury to the processes they need to function. 

If X-ray imaging is found to be associated with neurodegeneration, the risk-versus-benefit must be reevaluated, every means of reducing exposure implemented and imaging protocols revised. So…..we here at Chiropractic Forward will be following along here. Because if this turns out to confirm that radiation causes neurodegenerative disease, you know what that means for the chiropractors shooting x-rays on each and every patient and then doing several follow up x-rays on them?  They won’t be happy campers. But, maybe they’ll start following more guidelines that say no x-rays outside of red flags. I’ve said several times that I’m not against chiropractors that shoot initial x-rays. I’m really not.

Some are just more comfortable working on people when they’ve seen what they can see.  My issue is using the initial x-rays as a scare tactic and communicating in a catastrophic way to achieve a long treatment schedule out the patient. One they likely don’t need at all.  My other issue would be repeating x-rays several times through treatment.

That’s not evidence-based and the patient doesn’t need them. 

Alright, that’s it. Y’all be safe. Continue taking care of yourselves and taking care of your neighbors. Tough times are upon us but, the sun will shine again. Trust it, believe it, count on it. Let’s get to the message. Same as it is every week. 

Store Remember the evidence-informed brochures and posters at chiropracticforward.com. 

Chiropractic evidence-based products

Integrating Chiropractors

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The Message I want you to know with absolute certainty that when Chiropractic is at its best, you can’t beat the risk vs reward ratio because spinal pain is primarily a movement-related pain and typically responds better to movement-related treatment rather than chemical treatments like pills and shots. When compared to the traditional medical model, research and clinical experience show us patients can get good to excellent results for headaches, neck pain, back pain, and joint pain to name just a few. It’s safe and cost-effective can decrease surgeries & disability and we do it through conservative, non-surgical means with minimal hassle to the patient. And, if the patient treats preventativly after initial recovery, we can usually keep it that way while raising the overall level of health!

Key Point: At the end of the day, patients should have the guarantee of having the best treatment that offers the least harm. When it comes to non-complicated musculoskeletal complaints…. That’s Chiropractic!

Contact Send us an email at dr dot williams at chiropracticforward.com and let us know what you think of our show and tell us your suggestions for future episodes.  Feedback and constructive criticism is a blessing and so are subscribes and excellent reviews on podcast platforms.  We know how this works by now. If you value something, you have to share it, interact with it, review it, talk about it from time to time, and actively hit a few buttons to support it here and there when asked. It really does make a big difference. 

Connect We can’t wait to connect with you again next week. From the Chiropractic Forward Podcast flight deck, this is Dr. Jeff Williams saying upward, onward, and forward.

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About the Author & Host Dr. Jeff Williams – Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger

Bibliography Giacalone A, F. M., Magnifica F, Ruberti E, (2020). “The Effect of High Velocity Low Amplitude Cervical Manipulations on the Musculoskeletal System: Literature Review.” Cureus 12(4): e7682. Hunter D, R. D., McKeirnan S, (2020). “Relationship Between Shoulder Impingement Syndrome and Thoracic Posture.” Phys Ther 100(4): 677-686. Rodgers C (2020). “Low-dose X-ray Imaging May Increase the Risk of Neurodegenerative Diseases.” Med Hypotheses 142(109726).