CF 247: w/ Dr. Jay Greenstein – Inspiration, Experience, Passion, and Progress Today we’re joined by the one and the only, Dr. Jay Greenstein, He’s going to share some amazing insight and you’re going to love every bit of it. 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!
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. 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 #247 Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about Healthcare Utilization for Spine Pain & Sensorimotor Retraining on Pain Intensity. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class.
On the personal end of things…..
We are stil in the back to school doldrums around here. Slower than I want to be. What do you tell yourself when you’re slow at the clinic? Do you panic? If I were brand new in practice, I might. Hell, if a slowdown lasts too long, I still panic. But its healthier to understand the ebbs and flows, the peaks and the valleys, and the ups and downs. It just is and I can set my watch by the back to school slow down. It’s every single year. Without fail. So, I settle down and say to myself, ‘Hey self…it’s OK. You didn’t get caught kicking the mayor’s dog. The whole city isn’t mad at you. You have a well-established clinic with hundreds of five star reviews and thousands of happy patients. Some of which you’ve changed their lives. So chill the hell out, take advantage of the extra time, and get some stuff done.” And that’s what I’m doing.
A new opportunity has arisen for me recently. It’s with a company called Woodway which makes the most amazing treadmills and also distribute equipment made by an Italian company called Technobody. You will be hearing more and more about this coming up but they have signed me on as a representative. I will be talking more and more about the piece of Tecnobody equipment I’ve had in my office for a couple of years. It’s amazing and can test proprioception, concussion disorders, balance training, shoulder rehab, movement evaluation, and more. It’s called the ISO-Free by Tecnobody. If you’re interested in learning more, email me at creekstonecare@gmail.com so I can show you more and get you going on it. On a different note, have you noticed that the gremlins tend to sneak in over the weekends? How does that happen exactly? We showed up at work this Monday and the alarm panel at the front door was hanging off of the wall, the mailbox for the whole office complex we are in was broken into and emptied out, the credit card machine wasn’t working, and everyone was losing their minds. Some Mondays are just made out of spending the morning putting everything back together after the weekend Gremlins are done making a mess. But, we are entrepreneurs and basically nothing can stop the steamroller. That’s enough of that, I can’t wait to get to our guest today.
We are joined by the one and only….Dr. Jay Greenstein. I’m fortunate enough to have gotten to know and become good friends with Jay and if you’ve never seen him speak at an event, stop messing around and seek him out. You will learn. Not only is he dynamic but he’s just got this amazing vibe that makes everyone welcome and comfortable and glad they came. We’ll probably talk about it as we get into it a little bit but Jay and I are both in Dr. Kevin Christie’s MCM Mastermind group that you’ve heard me mention so many times on this podcast. Jay was also the presenter at the first Mastermind in January in Del Ray Beach and I was just blown away.
Jay understands so much more about running and managing his businesses aned employees than I’ll ever know. Since then, I got to spend a weekend with Jay at the ChiroTexpo event in Frisco, TX back in June and then I was fortunate to spend another wild and crazy Mastermind weekend with Jay and the crew in Sarasota, Florida back in July. I’m just saying, you folks are in for a treat right now and are going to love this interview so let’s get into it. Let me start by giving Jay a proper intro here. Drum roll and everything.
Dr. Jay is the founder and CEO of Kaizenovate, a technology company that builds custom mobile apps for chiropractic practices helping doctors improve outcomes and income. He is also the founder and CEO of the Kaizo Health Companies. The Kaizo Health companies are comprised of: · Kaizo Health is a multilocation chiropractic and rehabilitation practice. · KaizoX is a sports performance and personal training company. · And Kaizo Clinical Research Institute is a 501-c3 non-profit that runs clinical trials to identify best practices. The Institute is part of a large multi-year NIH study evaluating emerging Healthtech interventions for musculoskeletal conditions. Dr. Jay is a task force member for the Future of Chiropractic Strategic Plan and is the current Chairman the ChiroTech Consortium Workgroup. His is also the chairman of the Federation of International Chiropractic du Sport’s World Olympians Scholarship Program. He is immediate past Chairman for the Clinical Compass,
Dr. Greenstein is a sought out international speaker and consultant, teaching evidence into practice, leadership, business management and emerging technologies. Dr. Greenstein sits on multiple advisory boards in healthcare and technology.
Jay, where in the world are you today?
Since being a chiropractor isn’t always the most obvious choice for many of us, I love to hear how it came about for you. Tell me why did you become a chiropractor?
Now the last time we were together was in Sarasota at the MCM Mastermind. You were leaving that weekend to travel to a St. Petes for a few days on the beach and then you were going to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a chiropractic retreat. I want your life. So, tell us about your companies. Give us the layout of everything you have your digits into today and what allows you the freedom to travel and do the things you do?
That kind of takes me into the question, with you being like the Energizer bunny and all over the place from day to day, what is it that motivates you and drives you and keeps you so on top of what you’re doing?
On this podcast, we have a spotlight or focus each week on 2-4 research papers. I know you and your team have been involved in conducting your own research projects. Can you share some of that with us?
What would you say has been your biggest obstacle you’ve encountered in your career and how were you able to resolve it?
Tell me about your involvement with Clinical Compass.
At this point in your career, you have 4 practices, a tech company, speaking opportunities, and on and on and on. At this point, what is your motivating factor to be a part of the MCM Mastermind group that I’m in with you?
What, so far, has been your biggest impression or lesson or takeaway from the mastermind this year.
You can speak on so many topics at the conferences and seminars around the country. What would you say is your favorite topic to speak about?
What have been the biggest lessons you’ve learned in your career?
is on the down hill and doomed. Some say that enrollment in the schools is up. What do you see as being the future of our profession?
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.
Purchase Dr. Williams’s book, a perfect educational tool and chiropractic research reference for the daily practitioner, from the Amazon store TODAY!
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/
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
CF 245: Upregulated Central Nervous System & Shared Decision Making With The Patient Today we’re going to talk about Upregulated Central Nervous System & Shared Decision Making With The Patient. 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!
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. 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 an 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 #245 Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about Recognizing Cervical Artery Dissection. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class.
On the personal end of things…..
Things are clicking along pretty normally for a chaotic clinic. Today, let’s talk a little about your relationships with your employees before we get to the research. Everyone has different styles of owning or managing their clinics and staff. Mine has always been to treat them like family. Honestly, we spend more time with our staff than we do with our own families. So why not have friendly and almost family-like relationships with them? Why the hell not? I don’t want awkward forced relationships with the people I’m with every day all day. I want fun, happy, and friendly relationships. With people I look forward to seeing every day.
My staff is hilarious and we have a lot of fun together.
I’ll give you a little story as an example. My office manager is getting married in September. Probably about the time this episode goes live. She had her wedding shower on August 13th at her mother’s house. It wasn’t the regular boring old wedding shower. They had drinks, men and women, cornhole, and beer pong in the back yard…..you get the picture. Pretty much my entire staff of 12 or 13 was there. Which is nice. They feel like family to an extent. That’ll warm your heart, right? Well, I’m of the age that beer pong wasn’t ‘a thing’ in my college years. We played simple games like quarters or something like that. Anyway, I went to the wedding shower. My wife actually helped host it and run it all. She made a huge table full of charcuterie items and it was just all very well done.
So that’s point #1; she felt close enough to us to not only want us at her wedding shower but to have my wife help host it. Then, after gifts were opened and a few filtered out, everyone moved to the backyard and played cornhole and beer pong. My office manager made me be her teammate for a game of beer pong. Now, I told her I can’t play with drinks because I was driving so I just sipped on one beer while we played. Turns out, I actually have a little talent for beer pong. We won the first game against her fiancee and Boom! Instant respectability amongst the kiddos.
So, point #2; when your staff likes you and wants you to participate in aspects of their personal life, I say you just do it. You build friendship, loyalty, camaraderie, and trust the more you just say, “Yes.” Play beer pong. Even when you don’t want to or don’t know how to play it. It’ll pay off in the long run. If you feel differently, let me know. Send me an email at dr.williams@chiropracticforward.com I want your opinion so I can share with the collective.
OK, on to the research.
Item #1
Our first one is called “Does shared decision making results in better health related outcomes for individuals with painful musculoskeletal disorders? A systematic review” by Christopher et. al. (Yannick Tousignant-Laflamme 2017) published in the Journal of Manual and Manipulative Therapy in 2017.
Why They Did It
Shared Decision-Making (SDM) is a dynamic process by which the health care professional and the patient influence each other in making health-related choices or decisions. SDM is strongly embedded in today’s health care approaches and is advocated as an ideal model since it renders individuals more control over the health care they choose to receive, and has been shown to improve patient outcomes. The goal of this systematic review was to investigate the added value of SDM on clinical health-related outcomes in patients with a variety of musculoskeletal conditions.
How They Did It
PubMed and CINAHL. To be considered for review, the study had to meet all the following criteria: (1) prospective studies that involved treatment decision-making; (2) randomized controlled trial design; (3) involving patients faced with having to make a treatment decision; (4) comparing SDM with a control intervention and (5) including one or more of the following outcome measures: well-being, costs, health-related pain or disability measures, or quality of life.
What They Found
We did not find a single study that looked at the true effect of SDM on patient-reported outcomes in a population with musculoskeletal pain.
Wrap It Up
For the management of painful musculoskeletal conditions, in the light of the current evidence (none), we estimate that it would be wise to explore the effectiveness of SDM before forcing its large-scale implementation in rehabilitation. Before getting to the next one, 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
The last one is called, “Mechanisms of chronic pain – key considerations for appropriate physical therapy management” by Courtney et. al. (Carol A. Courtney 2017) and published in the Journal of Manual and Manipulative Therapy in March of 2017. Rather than a full-blown research project, this one is more of an informational article with some future direction.
They say the following: “In the last decades, knowledge of nociceptive pain mechanisms has expanded rapidly. The use of quantitative sensory testing has provided evidence that peripheral and central sensitization mechanisms play a relevant role in localized and widespread chronic pain syndromes. In fact, almost any patient suffering from a chronic pain condition will demonstrate impairments in the central nervous system. In addition, it is accepted that pain is associated with different types of trigger factors including social, physiological, and psychological. This rationale has provoked a change in the understanding of potential mechanisms of manual therapies, changing from a biomechanical/medical viewpoint, to a neurophysiological/nociceptive viewpoint.
Therefore, interventions for patients with chronic pain should be applied based on current knowledge of nociceptive mechanisms since determining potential drivers of the sensitization process is critical for effective management. The current paper reviews mechanisms of chronic pain from a clinical and neurophysiological point of view and summarizes key messages for clinicians for proper management of individuals with chronic pain.”
Now, I don’t know exactly where you’ve been hearing this since 2019. Oh, wait, yes I do. Here!
You’ve been hearing it here and research is catching up. I didn’t invent this stuff, of course. And I’m no smarter than everyone else. I just happened to take the course for the Diplomate of the International Academy of Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine and was taught by Drs. Anthony Nicholson and Matthew Long in that course and THEY are on the cutting edge. They are the reason I’ve been preaching this stuff for so long now. They’re the reason my patients get better at the rate they do.
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.
Purchase Dr. Williams’s book, a perfect educational tool and chiropractic research reference for the daily practitioner, from the Amazon store TODAY!
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/
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
Carol A. Courtney, C. F.-d.-l.-P. S. B. (2017). “Mechanisms of chronic pain – key considerations for appropriate physical therapy management.” Journal of Manual & Manipulative Therapy 25(3): 118-127.
Yannick Tousignant-Laflamme, S. C., Derek Clewley, Leila Ledbetter, Christian Jaeger Cook & Chad E Cook, (2017). “Does shared decision making results in better health related outcomes for individuals with painful musculoskeletal disorders? A systematic review.” Journal of Manual & Manipulative Therapy 25(3): 144-150.
CF 239: Change Your Mind About Pain Today we’re going to talk about changing your mind when it comes to pain and how looking at it differently can help our patients get in control of it. 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!
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 #239 Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about Benzopdiazapines and Mirror Therapy. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class.
On the personal end of things…..
Folks, not a lot going on right now in practice. It seems like I’m just in a holding pattern of sorts at the moment. You’ve probably heard me mention that we’ve been slower lately. For whatever reason. That’s true. I’m not sure why. The economy, gas prices, who knows?
This week though, sitting here on a Monday morning, and counting, I have 162 patients set up for the week and we know more will jump in as the week progresses. That’s 17 new patients set up so far this week as well. That will usually bump up to about 23-25 if I’m guessing. Whack-a-mole people. So, now that numbers are back on the rise, another hole will appear in the bucket. Another mole will pop up and have to be whacked on the noggin with my oversize sledgehammer.
So what’s it going to be?
Patients failing to stay on their schedules because we didn’t have the time available to educate them about the schedule? Not chasing A/R with any real intention? Where’s it going to be? Who knows? It’s always a great mystery but, as one thing improves, the pipes start busting elsewhere.
You better believe I have my eyes out too. At the ChiroTexpo event in Frisco a few weeks ago, I met a vendor that does billing, chases A/R, and things of that nature. They’re spending this week auditing our EHR billing records to make sure we’re up to speed and on target. I’m paying particular attention to the report of findings. I don’t do anything elaborate but when I get in a hurry, I tend to simply gloss right over it and keep scooting.
Not this time. Being in the Florida Mastermind has helped me slow down and give it the importance it deserves. And patient care will not take a step back regardless so….. We’ll see where the next a-hole mole comes popping up but believe me, I’m waiting and ready with binoculars!! Alright, let’s dive in
Item #1
Our first one this week is called, “A clinical perspective on a pain neuroscience education approach to manual therapy” by Louw et. al. (Adriaan Louw 2017)and published in the Journal of Manual and Manipulative Therapy on May 22, 2017 It’s 5 years old but I included it because it’s relevant to a lot of what I teach and talk about here on the podcast.
Before we get into these two papers today, I want you to understand that I don’t for a second discount the biomedical aspect of pain and I fully believe hands-on chiropractors are in an amazing spot and well-placed to handle the biopsychosocial pain model. But only if we understand it and know how to leverage our tools in our favor. Otherwise, we make it worse.
Why They Did It
In recent years, there has been an increased interest in pain neuroscience education (PNE) in physical therapy. There is growing evidence for the efficacy of PNE to decrease pain, disability, fear-avoidance, pain catastrophization, limited movement, and health care utilization in people struggling with pain. So what is PNE? PNE teaches people in pain more about the biology and physiology of their pain experience including processes such as central sensitization, peripheral sensitization, allodynia, inhibition, facilitation, neuroplasticity and more.
PNE’s neurobiological model often finds itself at odds with traditional biomedical models used in physical therapy. Traditional biomedical models, focusing on anatomy, pathoanatomy, and biomechanics have been shown to have limited efficacy in helping people understand their pain, especially chronic pain, and may in fact even increase a person’s pain experience by increasing fear-avoidance and pain catastrophization. Trust me, from the stories I get from my patients, the traditional bio-medical model doesn’t just cause catastrophization, it causes downright fear and terror in some patients. An area of physical therapy where the biomedical model is used a lot is manual therapy. I would add chiropractic to the discussion here as well.
This contrast between PNE and manual therapy has seemingly polarized followers from each approach to see PNE as a ‘hands-off’ approach even having clinicians categorize patients as either in need of receiving PNE (with no hands-on), or hands-on with no PNE. In this paper, the authors explored the notion of PNE and manual therapy co-existing.
PNE research has shown to have immediate effects of various clinical signs and symptoms associated with central sensitization. Using a model of sensitization, they argue that PNE can be used in a manual therapy model, especially treating someone where the nervous system has become increasingly hypervigilant. You guys and gals….if you have chronic pain patients, you have to start listening and paying attention to central sensitization, upregulated central nervous systems, cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, yellow flags, fear avoidance, catastrophization, oh my.
Seriously, if these terms are unfamiliar to you, please do yourself and your patients a favor and go get the smarts. You can start the smarts right here in our podcast episodes. I talk about this stuff non-stop and have been for years here so dive in.
It’s not one thing over the other. Either….or. It’s a broad management protocol that includes PNE, SMT, exercise, massage, yoga, tai chi, low level laser, and some other stuff all piled on top. Oh, and a good provider that communicates in a hopeful and encouraging manner. Put the puzzle together. Start by getting the smarts. And quit being confusion as the kids would say. Do research about it. Lol.
Before getting to the next one, I have to tell you, Dr. Chris Howson, the inventor of the Drop Release tool re-activated the code! It’s live again. Use the code HOTSTUFF upon purchase at droprelease.com to get $50 off your purchase. Y’all, it makes a world of difference. 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. My patients love it and I know yours will too. droprelease.com and the discount code is HOTSTUFF. Go do it. Hear me now and believe me later.
Item #2
The second one is called “Changes in psychosocial well-being after mindfulness-based stress reduction: a prospective cohort study” by Hill et. al. (Renee J. Hill 2017) and also published in The Journal of Manual and Manipulative Therapy on May 4, 2017. Again, yes, old man river here as far as research goes but relevant
Why They Did It
The primary purpose of the current study was to assess the effects of a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program, facilitated by non-psychologist clinicians, for improving psychosocial well-being. A secondary purpose of the current study was to explore the role of self-compassion as a potential underlying factor for improvements in emotional distress.
How They Did It
130 participants with a variety of medical complaints completed an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction program at Vanderbilt.
Before treatment and at the 8-week time point, participants completed measures for emotional distress, stress, mindfulness, and self-compassion.
Linear model estimation using ordinary least squares was used to evaluate the association between changes in self-compassion with changes in emotional distress.
I’m not going to lie….I’m ignorant of that last part. Made be feel stupid. Which, of course, isn’t hard to do.
What They Found
Following mindfulness-based stress reduction, participants reported significant reductions in emotional distress.
Additionally, participants reported improvements in mindfulness and self-compassion.
Linear regression model revealed that changes in self-compassion were significantly associated with changes in emotional distress.
Start getting the smarts. Research at least once per day.
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!
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.
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
Adriaan Louw, J. N. E. J. P. (2017). “A clinical perspective on a pain neuroscience education approach to manual therapy.” Journal of Manual & Manipulative Therapy 25(3): 160-168.
Renee J. Hill, L. C. M., Li Wang & Rogelio A. Coronado, (2017). “Changes in psychosocial well-being after mindfulness-based stress reduction: a prospective cohort study.” Journal of Manual & Manipulative Therapy 25(3): 128-136.
CF 237: Chronic Pain Talk & Thoughts Today we’re going to talk about one of my favorite topics; Chronic 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!
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 #237 Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about how You Are What You Eat & Screen Time For Kids. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class.
the personal end of things…..
I just don’t have a lot to report on the personal end of things. We’re a little slower lately. I think it’s because gas prices are sky freaking high and you have to take out a small loan just to fill up your vehicle. I think it’s depressing for a lot of folks. Any time there is confusion or uncertainty with the economy, people pull back. Understandably. Unfortunately, many see chiropractic as an extra and when people are trimming the budget, chiropractic, and healthcare in general, get trimmed and we take a hit. I think that’s what’s up right now.
I’ve talked to a couple of my colleagues in the Dallas area and there are feeling the same dial-back in business. I am used to about 45-50 on a Monday. This week, we have 35. I don’t dig it. Especially when I know I’m marketing and doing the smart stuff. It’s discouraging. But, at the end of the day, there are things out of our control, and rolling with the flow is all we can do. Be moral, ethical, honest, loving, evidence-based, and patient-centered, and treat people right. That’s what good and successful practices should consist of. Those build the base, the foundation of big things in life and in business.
Before getting to the next one, I have to tell you, that Dr. Chris Howson, the inventor of the Drop Release tool re-activated the code! It’s live again. Use the code HOTSTUFF upon purchase at droprelease.com to get $50 off your purchase. Y’all, it makes a world of difference. 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. My patients love it and I know yours will too. droprelease.com and the discount code is HOTSTUFF. Go do it. Hear me now and believe me later.
Item #1
This one is called “Manual physical therapy for chronic pain: the complex whole is greater than the sum of its parts” by Coronado et. al. and published in the Journal of Manual and Manipulative Therapy in 2017. They say that “Manual physical therapists can effectively treat patients with chronic pain and other musculoskeletal disorders; however, the field is at a crossroads. The traditional approach to manual therapy assumes that proper technique selection and precise implementation is the primary driver of a successful outcome. In this view, the resultant outcomes are directly attributed to the applied intervention.
They go on, “We propose manual physical therapists will only be recognized as ideal providers for individuals with chronic pain if we accept an updated paradigm acknowledging the complexity of the manual physical therapy experience and accept the robustness of varying contextual elements inherent in our interactions. For some clinicians, this will require a revolutionary shift in their perception of the development, maintenance, and modulation of pain “
You may have heard me say that I’m teaching a 2-hour course called “Chronic Pain And The Upregulated CNS” and this paradigm shift isn’t anywhere near where it will need to be. The information I’m teaching is brand new to 90% of the providers from my experience. “Pain is an experience orchestrated by dynamic sensory, cognitive, and affective processes and is strongly influenced by patient’s expectations (AKA Yellow Flags), mood, desires, and past experiences.
Limiting pain perception to a peripheral impairment is outdated and a more comprehensive, albeit complex, approach to manual therapy accounts for a myriad of interacting factors impacting chronic pain outcomes” “A comprehensive approach acknowledges the impact of patient and therapist factors, which not only include personal and condition-specific patient characteristics, but also the cultural biases, beliefs, and experiences of both the patient and therapist” “Additionally, this view acknowledges the interaction between patient and manual physical therapist, which may yield important outcome contributions, either directly (as in….what techniques we use) or indirectly (like addressing the yellow flags).” “Finally, this approach acknowledges the integration of targeted adjunct interventions such as psychosocial strategies and exercise that may (1) enhance the effectiveness of manual therapy for reducing the impact of pain, and/or (2) promote and maintain positive behavioral change”
We know that when people are sedentary, they have deeper depression, pain, and anxiety. Sleep issues and mood disorders. This is well-researched. On the other hand that movement and exercise reverse these things. Less depression, less anxiety, more fitness, better sleep, and less pain as the CNS becomes more comfortable with the movement and becomes more and more functional.
Pain signals and signals of all sorts run through a filter before they are felt…..or not felt at all. That filter can amplify the signals or dampen them. It’s no longer a straight biomedical view we take. It’s the biopsychosocial construct we use to approach pain now and if we only look at the bio part, we are cheating our patients out of 2/3 of the effectiveness we could have for them. In the end, if your CNS thinks it should hurt, it will. Regardless of whether there is tissue pathology or not. On the other hand, if your tissue is completely jacked up but the CNS determines there is no danger or threat, it will not hurt. Moseley and Butler lay it out straight like that in their book called Explain Pain.
They say it’s as simple and as difficult as that.
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.
Purchase Dr. Williams’s book, a perfect educational tool and chiropractic research reference for the daily practitioner, from the Amazon store TODAY!
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.
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
CF 219: Neurodynamic Moves Solve Problems – So Does The Inversion Table Today we’re going to talk about inversion tables and Neurodynamic exercises. 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!
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 #219 Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about Masterminds– chiropractic masterminds and the MCM Mastermind I’m in specifically with Dr. Kevin Christie. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class.
On the personal end of things…..
What a weekend down in Lubbock, TX for the Texas Chiropractic Association’s MidWinter conference. I got to hang out with my friend Dr. Tim Bertlesmen. What a guy, what a teacher, and what a positive force for our entire profession. Sitting through one of his courses is like having golden knowledge nuggets just chunked at you from a nerf gun. Pow, pow, kablam, splat. Just like that. Over and over. Only you don’t dodge the nuggets. You just step right into them and let them sink right in. He as good as it gets out there.
One of his nuggets I’ll share with you is hip abductors. If you are not assessing your new patients for weak hip abductors, get to researching and make it happen, muy pronto mi amigo. Luckily, in my coursework with the Diplomate of the International Academy of Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine, Dr. Bertlesman is an instructor and taught us about hip abductors a few years ago. Now, my secret is out!! Lol. Really though, be checking those hip abductors because they can be the missing puzzle piece to longstanding low back pain, hip pain, knee pain and chondromalacia patellae, and ankle and foot problems. Up to and including plantar fasciitis.
I got to teach while at the conference. I’ve taught a couple of courses for the TCA but they were COVID-era virtual courses. This was the first 2-hour live crowd presentation that I’ve been the presenter on and I have to say; I was a tad anxious but once I got started and into the material, it went very well and smoothly. I had some good buddies in the crowd so it was even a bit like a conversation rather than a presentation. I had several tell me that was the most they’ve taken away from a course in several years. Made me feel good and gave me encouragement that I’m going in the right direction.
Then if you’ve been listening, you know I have a rental down there on Airbnb so spent Sunday at the rental staining the deck and the fence. A not-so-nice end to the seminar weekend. Business seems to be picking back up which seems to be directly related to the omicron variant settling back down here in the Texas Panhandle. But, we can’t discount the fact that more people are meeting their deductibles in mid-February to early March as well. Either way, who cares? It equals to more business! Onward to research
Item #1
I’m just going to say that I got the research today from ChiroUp’s research roundup and thank you again to Dr. Tim Bertlesmen and Dr. Brandon Steele for being outstanding. This one is called “Lumbar disc disease: the effect of inversion on clinical symptoms and a comparison of the rate of surgery after inversion therapy with the rate of surgery in neurosurgery controls” by Mendelow et. al. (Alexander D. Mendelow 2021) and was published in Journal of Physical Therapy Science in 2021 so it’s hot hot hot.
Why They Did It
We have previously shown inversion therapy to be effective in a small prospective randomised controlled trial of patients with lumbar disc protrusions. Our purpose now was to measure symptoms and to compare the surgery rate following inversion for 85 participants with the surgery rate in 3 control groups.
How They Did It
Each of the 85 inverted participants acted as their own control for the “symptomatic” part of the study.
In the “Need for surgery” part of the study, one control group was made up of similar patients with leg pain and sciatica who were referred to the same clinic in the same year.
Two additional control groups were examined: the original control group from the pilot trial and the lumbar disc surgery waiting list patients.
What They Found
Inversion therapy relieved symptoms: there were improvements in the Visual Analogue Score, Roland Morris and Oswestry Disease indices, and Health Utility Score compared with their pre-treatment status.
Also, the 2-year surgery rate in the inversion participants in the registry (21%) was significantly lower than in the matched control group (39% at two years and 43% at four years).
It was also lower than the surgery rate in the other 2 control groups.
Wrap It Up
Inversion therapy relieved symptoms and avoided surgery. And let me tell you personally, we do decompression, we do inversion, we do McKenzie….we have lots of ways of going at low back pain. I’ve seen inversion poo poo’ed in evidence-based FB groups. I’m telling you, they don’t know what they’re talking about, for the right patient, inversion can be a game-changer. Insurance won’t pay for it but the patient will if it’s reasonable and makes sense.
Item #2
The second one today is called “Effect of Neural Mobilization Exercises in Patients With Low Back-Related Leg Pain With Peripheral Nerve Sensitization: A Prospective, Controlled Trial” by Alshami et. al. (Ali M. Alshami 2021) and published in the Journal of Chiropractic Medicine in June of 2021 and it’s hot hot hot as well If you don’t know what Neurodynamic moves, exercises, etc are….go Google up nerve flossing or nerve gliding or neurodynamic exercises. That should get you up to speed.
Why They Did It
The aim of this study was to investigate the short-term effect of slider and tensioner exercises on pain and range of motion (ROM) of straight leg raise (SLR) and slump tests in patients with low back-related leg pain with peripheral nerve sensitization.
How They Did It
It was a prospective, controlled trial,
51 patients with low back-related leg pain with peripheral nerve sensitization
tensioner (tensioner neural mobilization exercise + TENS), and
control (only TENS).
Each patient received 6 sessions over 2 weeks.
The following outcomes were measured at baseline and after the first, third, and sixth sessions: visual analog scale (VAS) for pain and ROM of SLR and slump tests were performed for the symptomatic side.
What They Found
Compared with controls, patients receiving the slider and tensioner exercises showed a greater decrease in pain at the third and sixth sessions
There was a significant difference in the ROM of the SLR test between the slider and controls at only the sixth session
Patients in the slider and tensioner groups demonstrated greater improvements in the ROM of slump test at all sessions compared with controls
There were no significant differences between the slider and tensioner groups in any outcome at any session.
Wrap It Up
Patients in both slider and tensioner neural mobilization exercise groups demonstrated improvements in pain and ROM in patients with low back-related leg pain with peripheral nerve sensitization compared to those in the control group. Item #3 Number three today is called “Effectiveness of Neural Mobilization Techniques in the Management of Musculoskeletal Neck Disorders with Nerve-Related Symptoms: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis with a Mapping Report”‘ by Varangot-Reille et. al. (Clovis Varangot-Reille 2021) and published in Pain Medicine on October 11, 2021, steamy plate of knowledge nuggets coming up!
Why They Did It
The objective was to assess the effectiveness of neural mobilization (NM) techniques in the management of musculoskeletal neck disorders with nerve-related symptoms (MND-NRS).
How They Did It
They conducted a systematic review with meta-analysis, using pain intensity, disability, perceived function, cervical range of motion, and mechanosensitivity as the main outcome measures. The systematic review included 22 studies
Wrap It Up
Neural mobilization appeared to be effective to improve overall pain intensity when embedded in a physiotherapy treatment in the management of musculoskeletal neck disorders with nerve-related symptoms. When compared with no intervention, it was effective to improve neck rotation, disability, and function. However, it was not superior to other types of treatments in improving overall pain intensity, neck pain intensity, arm pain intensity, cervical range of motion and disability, except for mechanosensitivity.
Item #4
I’m an overachiever today, our fourth paper is called, “Neurodynamics is an effective intervention for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome” by Stephanie Wise and Jordon Bettleyon (Stephanie Wise and Jordan Bettleyon 2021) and published in the Journal of sport Rehabilitation on December 20th, 2021 – Kablamo – that’s some heat people.
Why They Did It
Is neurodynamics effective in reducing pain and reported symptoms in those with CTS?
How They Did It
Four studies were included, with 2 studies utilizing passive neural mobilizations, one study using active techniques, and one study using active neural mobilizations with splinting.
What They Found
All studies showed large effect size for pain, symptom severity, and physical function.
Wrap It Up
Neurodynamics is an effective treatment for CTS. Splinting is only effective when combined with neurodynamics. I’m hammering this home because radiculopathy doesn’t have to go directly to surgeons and it’s not just a pop and street them either. We have lots of things we can do McKenzie, we have decompression, we have neurodynamic exercises, low-level laser may be a possible treatment, traction, is it TOS??? Lots of stuff to run through before we need to worry about something more intensive and invasive.
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.
Purchase Dr. Williams’s book, a perfect educational tool and chiropractic research reference for the daily practitioner, from the Amazon store TODAY!
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/
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
CF 205: Chiropractic Adjustments For The Cervical Spine Really Work & Lumbar Radiculopathy Treatment Today we’re going to talk about research backing the use of spinal manipulative therapy for neck pain. A systematic review and meta-analysis even! Big stuff. Then we’ll talk about treatment for lumbar radiculopathy. What extra tips can you pick up? 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!
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
You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #205 Now if you missed last week’s episode, we talked about The Case Of The Disappearing Disc & Vitamin D And Back Pain. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class.
On the personal end of things…..
Alright, we got some stuff shaking folks. So, let’s talk about it. First thing, Drake leaving. Who the hell is Drake you might ask? Well, that’s our Parker university intern that’s been with us since last August. We’re spoiled as hell having Drake with us these days. We’re going to miss his help and honestly, he’s just a good guy. We’ll miss him personally as well. Yes, I tried to hire him but not everyone wants to move to Amarillo so getting associates in this area can be a bit of a challenge. So I’m saying it, if you want to come to Amarillo, you’re always more than welcome to send me a resume at dr.williams@chiropracticforward.com and I’m happy to take a look.
We have fun. We get people better. And life is good. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we had a turnover and we’d be having a new front desk staffer coming on board. Well, this is the week and here we go. We may have gotten lucky on this one people.
First, we hire off of Indeed. I’m sure they think I’m a bit of a prick but I use the assessment tools. They have to fill out a couple of assessments that test their knowledge. One is on EHR, another is general office procedure and stuff like that. Well, so many of them just go down the line clicking jobs and submitting without understanding that the assessments weed that out. If they don’t take the time to fill out the assessments, they didn’t care enough about the job to read about it. Which means I don’t care enough about them to waste my time learning more about them. So I move right past them.
This girl has worked for an urgent care and only looked elsewhere because they didn’t have a full-time position like she needed. My friends actually work at the urgent care and vouched for her. We have the ones we’re interested in come in for a working interview. All of the staff agreed she was the clear choice both in experience as well as in personality. Our office culture is one defined by fun. We jump scare each other. We laugh. We kid. We are always appropriate but there are times we could be more professional but….again…we have fun. And Our patients love it.
They commonly comment in our Google Reviews about how they love that everyone is so happy, having fun, and enjoying their work. It’s easy when you have the crew I have. We do work. We work hard. Some days suck. Some days fly by. But think about it, we spend more time with our staff than we spend with our own families for the most part. Right? So why not having fun? Why not have a sense of family, of belonging, and a sense of being a team? Why not? So we’ll be making a new teammate this week. She’s going to be amazing. I just have a feeling.
Also, I believe it was last week we discussed side gigs. I mentioned my recent success in the voice over industry and that I’ve been schooling up on real estate investing and all that good stuff. I mentioned that I planned on parlaying that voice over success into real estate investments. Well, I’ve been analyzing houses and I’ve been learning about remote management of short-term rentals and the pros and cons vs having a long-term rental and all of that good stuff. Well, I identified 9 properties down in Lubbock TX. Lubbock is about an hour and a half to the south of Amarillo. It’s the home of Texas Tech and Buddy Holly. It’s also where one of my kids goes to college. It’s also the place where my other kid who is currently an 8th grader will likely go if I haven’t retired and moved to Florida when she goes to college.
Lots of football games, basketball games, baseball games….lots of visits to the medical school there in town….lots of big-name concerts. It’s all good news for having a short-term rental.
Go back and listen to last week’s episode if you want to know why short-term rentals make more sense for tax reasons than other investments right now. Anyway, I found 9 houses that my wife went to look at last week. She made an offer on one and, once we refi our rental house here in Amarillo, we’ll be able to pull out about $150,000 to put on 1-2 others. One of which is a flip we think we can profit $30k in about three months if there are no surprises or hiccups. So…..I’m a fact finder. I’ve been finding facts for about a year now. Watching YouTubes. Taking little classes. Listening to podcasts. Reading books. Meeting people and building a small network. So, we’re on it. We’re excited. We’re pumped. We’re busy as hell.
It’s kind of crazy the faith I have in my wife’s decisions. In lots of ways, she’s the smartest person I believe I’ve ever met. Our first house we bought together, I was on the road traveling with my band somewhere down in south Texas when she made an offer on it. I’d never even seen the house.
The one I live in now, I actually saw and agreed on.
The 2-3 down in Lubbock, I haven’t seen either. But I’m buying them. Lol. It’s crazy but she’s a hell of a teammate on this stuff and her vision of what she can do with a house has blown me away. She has some serious skills and I can’t wait to see what happens when she puts them to use on these investments.
The first one is called “Spinal Manipulative Therapy for Acute Neck Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomised Controlled Trials” by Chaibi et. al. (Chaibi A 2021) and published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine in October 2021 and that’s got some smoke on it! Let me say that I’ve been yelling for some research on the effectiveness of SMT for neck pain for 4 years here on this podcast. I’ve talked to different researchers about it. They said they couldn’t get funding for it. Now, here we are with a small step for a chiropractor but a giant leap for chiropractor-kind…..or something like that.
Why They Did It
Acute neck pain is common and usually managed by medication and/or manual therapy. General practitioners (GPs) hesitate to refer to manual therapy due to uncertainty about the effectiveness and adverse events (AEs);
How They Did It
To review original randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing the effect of spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) for acute neck pain.
Data extraction was done in duplicate and formulated in tables.
Quality and evidence were assessed using the Cochrane Back and Neck (CBN) Risk of Bias tool and the (GRADE) criteria
Six studies were included.
What They Found
The overall pooled effect size for neck pain was very large -1.37 (95% CI, -2.41, -0.34), favoring treatments with SMT compared with controls.
They had a single study that showed that SMT was statistically significantly better than medicine (30 mg ketorolac im.) one day post-treatment.
Minor transient adverse events reported included increased pain and headache, while no serious adverse events were reported
Wrap It Up
SMT alone or in combination with other modalities was effective for patients with acute neck pain. However, limited quantity and quality, pragmatic design, and high heterogeneity limit our findings. So, once again, researchers….please listen. We have enough information on the low back. We know we knock it out of the park on low back pain. Even our haters mostly know we kill it on low back pain. Those douches over at sciencebasedmedicine.whatever mostly admit we’re good on low back pain. And trust me, if you change their damn minds, you’re on to something. So, let’s expand to the neck, please. Pretty please? Dr. Goertz, Dr. Pohlman, Drs influential with Chiropractic Compass, can we please continue down this path of exploring our effectiveness and low risk for adverse events in the neck because honestly, THIS clinically is what is holding us back.
Professionally, it’s the vitalists in our profession. But clinically, it’s the perception that we do harm when treating the neck. Can we do harm? Well hell yes we can. Do we commonly do harm and are we likely or probable to do harm? Oh hell no. Why would you ask such a dumb question?
This one is called “The Effect of Spinal Mobilization With Leg Movement in Patients With Lumbar Radiculopathy-A Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial” by Satpute et. al. (Satpute K 2019) and published in Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation on December 3rd of 2018. It’s mushy…not solidified but not as warm as we like.
Why They Did It
To evaluate the effect of spinal mobilization with leg movement (SMWLM) on low back and leg pain intensity, disability, pain centralization, and patient satisfaction in participants with lumbar radiculopathy.
How They Did It
A double-blind randomized controlled trial.
The setting was in a General hospital.
60 adults with the mean age of 44 years old were included
They were al diagnosed with subacute lumbar radiculopathy
They were randomly allocated to receive spinal mobilization with leg movementexercise and electrotherapy or exercise and electrotherapy alone.
All participants received 6 sessions over 2 weeks.
The primary outcomes were leg pain intensity and Oswestry Disability Index score. Secondary variables were low back pain intensity, global rating of change (GROC), straight leg raise (SLR), and lumbar range of motion (ROM)
Variables were evaluated blind at baseline, post-intervention, and at 3 and 6 months of follow-up
What They Found
Significant and clinically meaningful improvement occurred in all outcome variables.
At 2 weeks the spinal mobilization with leg movement group had significantly greater improvement than the control group in leg pain and disability.
Similarly, at 6 months, the spinal mobilization with leg movement group had significantly greater improvement than the control group in leg pain and disability.
The spinal mobilization with leg movement group also reported greater improvement in the global rating of change and in SLR range of motion.
Wrap It Up In patients with lumbar radiculopathy, the addition of spinal mobilization with leg movement provided significantly improved benefits in leg and back pain, disability, SLR ROM, and patient satisfaction in the short and long term. 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 the 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!
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.
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
Chaibi A, S. K., Russell MB (2021). “Spinal Manipulative Therapy for Acute Neck Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomised Controlled Trials.” J Clin Med 10(21): 5011.
Satpute K, H. T., Bisen R, Lokhande P, (2019). “The Effect of Spinal Mobilization With Leg Movement in Patients With Lumbar Radiculopathy-A Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial.” Arch Phys Med Rehabil 100(5): 828-836.
CF 203: Reduced Access To Chiropractic & The Ideal Diet Today we’re going to talk about reduced access to chiropractic and we’ll talk about the ideal diet. 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!
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
You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #203 Now if you missed last week’s episode, we talked about Pain And Clumsiness & Treatment Escalation. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class.
On the personal end of things…..
The resurgence continues in my clinic’s numbers. I believe we had 26 new patients this last week and about 183 or so patients. Our Nurse Prac is still building slowly. Honestly, a little slower than I expected. He is averaging around 15-20 appointments per week. Some are as simple as trigger points. Some are as extensive as hormone pellets and PRP injections. I’m telling you I’ve railed against cortisone injections for years and I still do. But lidocaine trigger points …..now that’s a different deal. I’ve been floored at how much they can make a difference for some of my patients that have been on the more pesky side with regard to some nagging pain.
Good stuff and it’s a $50 cash service so it’s not out of reach for most patients and it seems, so far, to be very effective for most.
As with everything in life, nothing can stay good for too long, can it?
It seems the answer is no. It can’t. I left work on Friday after a great, busy, fairly stress-free week. As I was walking out the back door, my front desk employee for the last year and a half or so gives me her 2-week notice. Yep, we just got everything up and running and kicking some butt, and boom.
There are lots of reasons behind the scenes as to why she made the decision but the end story is that there was a bit of internal conflict, we’ve had some difficulties in the past with how this person handled some patients or situations, and….though we’ll miss this person’s incredible attention to detail, it’s probably a good move for all involved. We wish her the very best.
She’s a great person and a hard and dependable worker. Just a bad fit I suppose
Now, you all know how valuable a front desk employee is. They are simply hard to replace but, it is what it is. Fortunately, and you all might listen up here, my wife took classes and became a front desk billing guru. So, she can train new front deskers, She can get them up to speed quicker than anyone I know because she’s smarter than anyone I know. I mention this because my wife being trained so well takes a lot of burden off of us when it comes to replacing the front desk staff. It’s going to happen sooner or later and why be held hostage by employees because the owners don’t know what’s going on?
Now let’s be honest, I don’t know the front desk. That’s why at one time in my career, I absolutely WAS held hostage by the front desk. That’s why, several years ago, I found out that I lost an incredible amount of money over a 3-year time span. And when I say ‘incredible’, I’m talking around $750,000 over three years. I don’t like saying it but I’m always honest with you all. That’s the best way to be a coach or mentor or adviser.
It’s with honesty.
It wasn’t stolen or embezzled. It just wasn’t collected on and then the time passed to where it could no longer be billed and collected on. So…all of that work was just gone. It’s not every day you find out you’ve lost around $750,000. Time and Bud Light helped me through and I’m doing OK today. You have to move beyond the things that will bring you down and keep you down if you allow them to.
But yeah, that’s why you can’t be held hostage by employees. That’s also exactly WHY my wife got trained. So that we’d never be in that position again. And….we aren’t this time either. We have the luxury of being able to pick and choose by personality type rather than strictly experience because we can train the skills ourselves.
So, to Indeed we go. Wading through hundreds of resumes that won’t show up when we schedule interviews. It’s insane. But, it’s a necessary evil and, I’m a Christian, so we pray for the perfect person to be led our way. What do you need in a front desker? Personality! They are the first impression a person gets when they call on the phone. They are the first person a patient encounters when they get there and the last person they encounter on the way out. That’s as important and vital as anything.
Pain is weird and responds differently in everyone. so I don’t care if someone leaves feeling better immediately. Obviously that’s the goal but not the most important thing. What I really care about is how they feel about their experience being in our clinic and how they felt about the people they came into contact with while they were there. THAT’s what matters the most. Especially in the first visit or two.
They can be practice builders and they can be practice killers.
This one, very key person. So…..let’s make it count shall we?? Let’s dive into the research this week.
Item #1
This first one is called “Evaluation of Dietary Patterns and All-Cause Mortality: A Systematic Review” by English et. al. (English LK 2021) and published in JAMA Open Network on August 31, 2021, and that’s hotter than that the Texican sun in the Summer.
Why They Did It
They wanted to answer the question, “What is the association between dietary patterns consumed and all-cause mortality?”
How They Did It
It was a systematic Review but of only one randomized clinical trial but 152 observational studies
Participants were from 17-84 and from 28 different countries
They were all on the topic of dietary patterns and all=cause mortality
What They Found
They found a lot of what you’d probably expect they’d find.
Evidence demonstrated that dietary patterns characterized by increased consumption of vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, unsaturated vegetable oils, fish, and lean meat or poultry (when meat was included) among adults and older adults were associated with decreased risk of all-cause mortality.
These healthy patterns consisted of relatively LOW intake of red and processed meat, high-fat dairy, and refined carbohydrates or sweets.
Wrap It Up
Despite the different approaches, study designs, dietary assessment methods, geographical regions, and dietary pattern labels, the evidence demonstrated that dietary patterns associated with lower all-cause mortality risk were consistently characterized by higher intake of vegetables; legumes; fruits; nuts; either whole grains, cereals, or non-refined grains; fish; and unsaturated vegetable oils. These patterns were also characterized by lower or no consumption of animal products (red and processed meat, meat and meat products, and high-fat dairy products), refined grains, and sweets (ie, higher in added sugars). Labels that were assigned to the dietary patterns varied widely (eg, Mediterranean, prudent, Healthy Eating Index, DASH, and plant-based), highlighting that high-quality diets with nutrient-dense foods are associated with better health, regardless of diet type or dietary pattern name.
This second one is called “The Effect of Reduced Access to Chiropractic Care on Medical Service Use for Spine Conditions Among Older Adults” by Davis et. al. (Davis M 2021) and published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics in June of 2021 and toastier than a hot toddy!
Why They Did It
The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which access to chiropractic care affects medical service use among older adults with spine conditions.
How They Did It
They used Medicare claims data to identify a cohort of 39,278 older adult chiropractic care users who relocated during 2010-2014 and thus experienced a change in geographic access to chiropractic care.
National Plan and Provider Enumeration System data were used to determine chiropractor per population ratios across the United States.
A reduction in access to chiropractic care was defined as decreasing 1 quintile or more in chiropractor per population ratio after relocation.
Using a difference-in-difference analysis (before versus after relocation), they compared the use of medical services among those who experienced a reduction in access to chiropractic care versus those who did not.
What They Found
Among those who experienced a reduction in access to chiropractic care (versus those who did not), they observed an increase in the rate of visits to primary care physicians for spine conditions
An annual increase of 32.3 visits per 1,000
And the rate of spine surgeries (an annual increase of 5.5 surgeries per 1,000).
Considering the mean cost of a visit to a primary care physician and spine surgery, a reduction in access to chiropractic care was associated with an additional cost of $114,967 per 1,000 patients
That’s to the tune of $391 million nationally
Two syllables – one word…..Day-um.
That’s a metric crap-ton of green cheese. A gob of Benjamins. A Gaggle of American greenbacks.
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 the 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.
Purchase Dr. Williams’s book, a perfect educational tool and chiropractic research reference for the daily practitioner, from the Amazon store TODAY!
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/
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
Davis M, Y. O., Liu H, Anderson B, Bynum J, (2021). “The Effect of Reduced Access to Chiropractic Care on Medical Service Use for Spine Conditions Among Older Adults.” J Manipulative Physiol Ther 44(5): 353-362.
English LK, A. J., Bailey RL, (2021). “Evaluation of Dietary Patterns and All-Cause Mortality: A Systematic Review.” JAMA Netw Open 4(8).
CF 178: Do Chiropractors Cause Disc Herniations & Family Doctors Still Don’t Get It
Today we’re going to talk about if chiropractors cause lumbar disc herniations and how primary doctors still don’t understand guidelines that are 4 years old at this point.
But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music
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.
You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #178
Now if you missed last week’s episode, we talked about spinal manipulative therapy effectiveness and chiropractic for colic. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class.
On the personal end of things….. It’s dragging. Don’t think for a second that you’re going to set up a medical entity in just a week or so. Lol. Goodness gracious. I went through my orthopedic diplomate in 6 months for a reason. It’s not because I’m smarter than anyone else or that I have more extra time than anyone else. Far from it. I went through it so quickly because I hate stuff just lingering out in the ether unfinished or waiting or on hold or whatever. It drives me crazy to have unfinished ideas or projects. Literally crazy. So, this new growth thing is making me crazy because it’s still not tied up and we’re in a holding pattern until the papers are signed and we are credentialing. Which we aren’t doing just yet.
But, I think we’re close.
My book will be launching on Tuesday, June the 8th. Be looking for it, y’all! I’m beyond excited about it!
Business is slowly picking back up. Texas is wide open at this point. Its rarer to see someone wearing a mask than it is to see those not wearing masks. Concerts have returned. Crowds have returned. And Texas had the second slowest growth of COVID last month. What does that say exactly?? Hell if I know. But I see the University of Massachusetts penalizing kids for not wearing masks off-campus and I see Texas with little COVID growth yet we’re wide open with basically no masks.
Who’s right? To me, it looks like Texas and states like Texas are right at this point in time. All of the lockdowns were important and needed and effective. Now, it appears to be time to loosen up considerably and proceed with less fear and more science.
I’m not an expert in that field. But there has to be some science coming out of what’s happening and the differences between states still locked down and states that are wide open. Between kids that have been going to school since August of 2020 and kids that just started a week or two ago because their schools have been closed all year.
It’s all interesting. That’s for sure. As for me, in my area, the sense of a return to the old normal is refreshing. In a city area of about 270,000 people, we added 19 new cases yesterday. Again, I’m 100% honest when I tell you there are basically zero masks to be seen with 100% capacity everywhere you go.
You be the judge.
Item #1 This first one is called “Chiropractic care and risk for acute lumbar disc herniation: a population-based self-controlled case series study”’ by Hincapie et. al. [1] and published in European Spine in July of 2018.
Why They Did It “Our objective was to investigate the association between chiropractic care and acute lumbar disc herniation with early surgical intervention, and contrast this with the association between primary care physician care and acute lumbar disc herniation with early surgery.”
How They Did It 195 cases of acute lumbar disc herniation with early surgery (within 8 weeks) were identified in a population of more than 100 million person-years. Self-controlled case series design and population-based healthcare databases in Ontario, Canada They investigated all adults with acute lumbar disc herniation requiring emergency department (ED) visit and early surgical intervention from April 1994 to December 2004. The relative incidence of acute lumbar disc herniation with early surgery in exposed periods after chiropractic visits relative to unexposed periods was estimated within individuals, and compared with the relative incidence of acute lumbar disc herniation with early surgery following primary care physician visits.
What They Found Strong positive associations were found between acute lumbar disc herniation and both chiropractic and primary care physician visits. The risk for acute lumbar disc herniation with early surgery associated with chiropractic visits was no higher than the risk associated with primary care physician visits.
Wrap It Up “Both chiropractic and primary medical care were associated with an increased risk for acute lumbar disc herniation requiring ED visit and early surgery. Our analysis suggests that patients with prodromal back pain from a developing disc herniation likely seek healthcare from both chiropractors and primary care physicians before full clinical expression of acute lumbar disc herniation. We found no evidence of excess risk for acute lumbar disc herniation with early surgery associated with chiropractic compared with primary medical care.”
CHIROUP ADVERTISEMENT
Item #2 The last one today is called “Initial Management of Acute and Chronic Low Back Pain: Responses from Brief Interviews of Primary Care Providers” by Roseen et. al. [2] and published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine in March of 2021 and we got a hot one folks!
Why They Did It They say, “In April 2017, the American College of Physicians (ACP) published a clinical practice guideline for low back pain (LBP) [3] recommending nonpharmacologic treatments as first-line therapy for acute, subacute, and chronic LBP.”
Listeners of this Chiropractic Forward Podcast know this because I have been riding that horse nonstop since it came out. I mention damn near every single episode.
The objective here is “To assess primary care provider (PCP)-reported initial treatment recommendations for LBP following guideline release. “
How They Did It Cross-sectional structured interviews. Interviews were completed between December 2017 and March 2018. Convenience sample of 72 primary care providers from 3 community-based outpatient clinics in high- or low-income neighborhoods. The PCPs were interviewed about their familiarity with the ACP guideline, and how they initially manage patients with acute/subacute and chronic LBP. PCPs were also asked about their comfort in referring patients to nonpharmacologic treatment providers, and about barriers to referring.
What They Found Of 72 participating PCPs, over three-fourths indicated being familiar with the ACP guideline For acute LBP, PCPs typically provided advice to stay active and pharmacologic management (97%; primarily nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs). For chronic LBP, PCPs were more likely to recommend nonpharmacologic treatments than for acute LBP The most common nonpharmacologic treatments recommended for chronic LBP were physical therapy (78%), chiropractic care (21%), massage therapy (18%), and acupuncture (17%) The cost of nonpharmacologic treatments was perceived as a barrier. However, PCPs working in low-income neighborhood clinics were as likely to recommend nonpharmacologic approaches as those from high-income neighborhood clinics.
Wrap It Up “While most PCPs indicated they were familiar with the ACP guideline for LBP, nonpharmacologic treatments were not recommended for patients with acute symptoms. Further dissemination and implementation of the ACP guideline are needed.”
So, what’s it going to take? Well, for one, the more fringe and crazy part of our profession needs to cut their crap. No, I don’t want to be a medical doctor or I would have gone to med school.
What I DO want is to be a respected part of an integrated healthcare team. Like it or not, the PCP is the gatekeeper and if the PCPs trust us, we get more patients, and at the end of the day, aren’t more patients the name of the game? Come on, of course, it is.
If our profession moves into the year 2021 instead of 1896 or whatever year Palmer got the idea from the osteopaths, then we can move forward with becoming a part of the community. Rather than separate and distinct. I do like not being under the state medical boards and all that good stuff. That’s necessary while there’s still such a divide.
But we can become more and more of the team if we stop thee more fringe assertions and ideas. Nepute, to my understanding, the chiro out in St. Louis…..the dude that has been, in my view, an absolute lunatic all over social media, is the first person getting nailed under the new covid laws and just happens to be a chiropractor.
Not a good look. In my opinion, he’s done chiropractors zero favors and really bruised us up quite a bit. Why in the hell would a PCP…….or a circus worker…or anyone else in the damn world…..see someone like NePuke and associate them with all other chiropractors and decide they’ll never send a patient or a friend to whackos like chiropractors?
Raise the game folks. Raise the game. Get current. Get smart. Make sure you’re sciencing once or twice per day. It’s not hard to do. Get a Diplomate. Specialize. Raise the game
Alright, that’s it. Y’all be safe. Keep changing our profession from your little corner of the world. Keep taking care of yourselves and everyone around you. 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.
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.
Dr. Jeff Williams – Fellow of the International Academy of Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine – Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger
Bibliography 1. Hincapie C, Chiropractic care and risk for acute lumbar disc herniation: a population-based self-controlled case series study. European Spine Journal, 2018. 27(7): p. 1526-1537. 2. Roseen EJ, C.F., Atlas SJ, Mehta DH,, Initial Management of Acute and Chronic Low Back Pain: Responses from Brief Interviews of Primary Care Providers. J Altern Complement Med, 2021. 27(S1): p. S106-S114. 3. Qaseem A, Noninvasive Treatments for Acute, Subacute, and Chronic Low Back Pain: A Clinical Practice Guideline From the American College of Physicians. Ann Intern Med, 2017. 4(166): p. 514-530.
CF 154: The Shake-Up With WFC’s Research Committee Today we’re going to talk about the research committee shake-up at the WFC. I’ve wondered for months now what exactly happened with shake-up and it hasn’t been easy to figure it out either. Who is to blame and what companies are to blame as well? We’ll get knee deep into it in this episode. But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music
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.
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 #154 Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about how some chiropractors could be better and being careful which guru you’re going to place your faith in. Some are just absolute loons and only driven by profit, not results and not the patient.
The saying is, when you’re focused on the outcomes, you’ll never have to worry about the income. 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
On the personal end of things…..
Chugging along. Making friends and influencing people. That’s how we do it here. Actually, that’s not true. I’m sure I got the vitalists all fired up last week and probably will this week as well. I’ll probably get some companies fired up too. We’ll see. It doesn’t have a thing to do with anything chiropractic but I’ve mentioned a time or two here that I’m branching out and, as a retirement plan, I’m working on a little side gig in the voice over / voice artist industry. This stuff is fascinating y’all. It really is.
So I went through the steps you’re supposed to go through in getting yourself all set up and now, here I am, I got a commercial demo done. If you’re just feeling goofy and bored, go to jeffwilliamsvoice.com and there’s a demo there you can listen to. Turns out I have the John Deere, Ford truck, eat this burger type of voice and I’m totally OK with that. Anyway, after you get a demo, you start submitting to talent agencies around the world. Well, hell….I don’t have all day to spend on doing this stuff so I can only get a few per day and there are tons of them.
But, in just the first round or so of submissions, I already got signed up with a talent agent out in San Francisco and Los Angeles as well as interest from a talent agency in Barcelona Spain and potentially a marketing firm down in Dallas/Ft. Worth. . So….how damn cool is that? Maybe, one of these days, my side gig takes over my day job. I’m not holding my breath though. But, seriously, my buddy has done it for about 7 years and he’s making six figures. Can you imagine making a good 6 figure salary but no employees, no overhead, you can make that money in your basement in your underwear (sorry for the visual there), and you can do it from anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection?
Well, it’s a cool idea and a lot of folks get to do it that way. Who knows? It’s a lot of luck and all that stuff but I’ve never been one that was afraid to take chances or afraid to fall on my face. Either way, it’s exciting and isn’t that what it’s about? Keeping life interesting and exciting? That reminds me, if you need a voice over for a youtube video, your podcast intro, or any commercial you’re doing, remember ol Uncle Jeffro here. I got you covered!
Item #1
Now, let’s get to spilling the tea shall we? I have to start by saying, I don’t love talking about this stuff. I don’t at all. It makes me uncomfortable. Mostly because some of my friends won’t like it. I work with a lot of chiropractors around the nation in different capacities and to be honest, while we work FOR the chiropractic profession, we don’t see eye to eye with each other on WHAT chiropractic is. Still, they’re my friends. So what do I do? Do I just say nothing about things I know they won’t agree with? Or do I talk about it and give my view point on them?
Well, I have a podcast so I guess I talk about it. I could stay out of the messiness of our profession and avoid tough subjects all together I guess. But who ever changed anything by taking that sort of stance? That’s not really any kind of stance at all is it? You change things by standing up, somewhere, and supporting your convictions. So that’s where i’m at. I don’t like. I’m uncomfortable with it, honestly. But the show must go on. Let’s start with what happened. Dr. Greg Kawchuk was the head of the World Federation of Chiropractic. I’m a fan of Dr. Kawchuk. so when I saw on Facebook or Twitter or somewhere that he resigned his post as head of the WFC research committee, it had me a bit miffed. Not only that but a lot of HUGE chiropractors on the committee left with him. Researchers on the level of Jan Hartvigsen for example.
To be specific, those that resigned are
Greg Kawchuk DC PhD Canada – Chair
Simon French, PhD, MPH, BAppSc(Chiro) Australia
Iben Axén DC PhD Sweden
Jan Hartvigsen DC PhD Denmark
Martin Descarreaux DC, PhD Canada
Carolina Kolberg DC PhD Brazil
Every single one of these researchers has been in the episodes we have released. They are big time for our profession. The vitalists, unfortunately, have labeled them subluxation deniers. I label them scientists but….whatever.I say tomato, they say dumb stuff. Their statement of resignation went like this, “Effective immediately, we (Greg Kawchuk (Chair), Iben Axen’, Martin Descarreaux, Simon French, Jan Hartvigsen, and Caroline Kolberg) resign from the World Federation of Chiropractic (WFC) Research Committee.
We no longer feel it is possible to function as independent academics in our roles on the committee. We urge the WFC to continue to promote the EPIC principles (Evidence-based, People-centered, Interprofessional and Collaborative), and to protect its core values from potential conflicts and outside influence. We wish the best for the WFC and our colleagues who serve on its Research Committee.” Now, it wasn’t all bad because they put Dr. Christine Goertz into the post as the head of the WFC committee and if you’re a listener here at the Chiropractic Forward evidence-based chiropractic podcast…..well then you know what a fan of Dr. Goertz we are. She’s a chiropractic treasure.
But, when I first heard the news, as you can imagine, and as you probably felt when you heard, it was a bit concerning for our profession to lose so many high profile, top-level researchers at once. What’s that going to mean for our profession and why did this happen in the first place? I started paying attention. I started looking for information. What the heck happened? But nothing. Not only nothing on the story but nobody was talking about it either. Like….it was just another event that happened on just another day. No big deal. When, in reality, at least to research consumers such as myself, it was a huge deal! Why did this happen and what the hell is the story?
Well, I’m going to give away the ending here before we really dive in, I’m not 100% sure but at least now I have an idea. A generaly idea. When I decided I was going to do this episode, I put it in our private Facebook group. We only have around 450 members approximately. Again, in case you don’t know, we have a public Chiropractic Forward page. That’s just to get the word out about the podcast and market the podcast. Then we also have a Chiropractic Forward private group where we can share research papers, we can discuss amongst ourselves, and all that good stuff and we can do it privately. I encourage you all to join the private group.
Not if you’re a vitalist. That’s not the group for you. But if you’re evidence-based and patient-centered, then you’re a good fit. Anyway, I posted in there that I wanted to do this episode and if anyone had the back story, please send me a private message about it. That I wanted to get it figured out and tell our audience.
There was a lot of interest in the episode but nobody knew the story about what happened. I asked elsewhere. Nobody knew but everyone wanted to know. I even asked Dr. Kawchuk himself and he was tied up in a research project. Dangit. Unfortunately, the research community’s lack of open communication on this matter has left this up to others to define the narrative. For example, when Googling up this story, I got an article by Matthew McCoy. The ever-so-nutsy vitalist out in Georgia. The townhall crier and huckster of woo. Yes, he’s one of them setting the narrative.
Also, one of the top hits was by our global hater for the ages, Edzard Ernst. What a toolbag. Yes, our global hater sets the narrative on what is happening in the chiropractic world. But nothing from the evidence-based, patient-centered side of the profession. What in the hell is going on here, people? Why in the hell are you all sitting on your hands? Why are you not talking about this, writing about this, yelling about this, or at least pushing back on this? Are we spineless? No pun intended by the way.
It’s just astonishing to me that so little is written about it and that the only information you can find on it is created by flat-earthers or by the apex of chiropractic haters. Finally, one of my colleagues here in the U.S. contacted me through text and we set up a phone call. They gave me the story as well as they understood it and that’s what I’m going to give you. Thank you to this colleague for shedding as much light on this story as you could. I really do appreciate it and I’m pretty sure the rest of our audience does as well.
If we are being fair, a small part of it appears to be Dr. Kawchuk’s fault, a very large part of it seems to fall on the vitalist, subluxation or nothing, rah rah rah crowd, and an even bigger aspect of the whole enchilada I believe can be directly pointed at the WFC’s corporate sponsors that backed the vitalist, subluxation is the only way crowd. I personally blame the companies. Without them bullying the WFC with sponsorship dollars, this wouldn’t have happened regardless of the rest of the dominoes that fell.
Let’s back up a bit. It sounds like it all begin in Berlin in 2019. Those of us paying attention know that it goes back much further than that though don’t we? Oh yeah, with the evidence-based, patient-centered model becoming more and more prevalent and moving the vitalists more and more to the fringe of the world, the louder the minority has become. Still, it appears, Berlin 2019 at the WFC conference was the final straw. Dr. Greg Kawchuk, who again, I’m a fan of, was one of the speakers at the event. His presentation was not vitalist/subluxation friendly.
Word on the street is that his speech was met with cheers but was also met with water bottles being thrown up on the stage and antics like that. Because, you know….our profession is divided in two in case you’ve been hiding in a cave. So, cheers makes sense. I don’t know what makes the other side think it’s OK to throw stuff on the stage but who knows? Maybe that’s just a dumb little European quirk. I had the opportunity to see almost the exact same speech at the Forward ’19 event in St. Louis a little over a year ago. I absolutely loved it. And, no….it was not subluxation friendly. Here was the difference in the speech I saw in St. Louis and the one that was given in Berlin.
Dr. Kawchuk, it is suggested, made a quip during his speech that taking a child to a vitalistic chiropractor is similar to taking a child to a Catholic priest. There are no recordings in existence of this version of the speech but I believe the basic gist of the comment was that if you’re willing to take your kid to a vitalist for 60+ visits, then you should leave your kids with a Catholic priest. OK, let’s address this because this one comment is what the ICA hung their hat on so I think it’s a pivotal thing. I think it’s also why this part of the speech was dropped when I heard it in St. Louis. It is my understanding, first of all, that Dr. Kawchuk wrote a letter of apology but it was perceived as having some “Yeah, but…” sentiment attached so maybe it didn’t come off as sincere as his detractors would want.
But here’s the thing, it wouldn’t have mattered how sincere the apology was, they found something to hang their hat on. They found an achilles heel and they weren’t going to let go of it. Regardless of what Greg said to them about it. Can I just say that I’m a Christian and I’m used to getting made fun of by so many out there in the world. It almost doesn’t even affect me anymore. Notice I said ‘almost’.
Now, I’m not Catholic. But Catholics are Christians so, by association, I should be rather offended as well right? I suppose if I were of the easily offended mindset, I would be. But I’m not because I see it all for what it’s worth. Number one: the Catholic church has had quite a well-chronicled issue in the past with priests and misconduct. I don’t know how you could argue with that and someone bringing it up has become VERY commonplace. That doesn’t make Greg’s comment any more out of place than the 100 other people I have seen mention or make fun of it on Facebook over the past 3-5 years. It’s become very common. Doesn’t make it right but it does make it common.
Number Two: did that belong in this speech? Well, I wasn’t the speaker so how do I know. I know that I saw the same speech last year without the comment and it seemed very effective and very welcome to everyone that was in attendance. So, it appears it would have been just as good and ultimately less offensive to some. Knowing what we now know, it doesn’t appear that it was a good choice to go with for that particular speech to that particular crowd. I would say that I enjoy a great and entertaining speech and the one I saw in St. Louis by Dr. Kawchuk was just that. It was actually pretty dang amazing.
I became an instant fan and hearing of the Catholic priest comment later on did nothing to dampen my fandom. I suggest people lighten the hell up and quit being so damned dramatic. Water off a duck’s back. Oh my goodness, someone said something you didn’t like or agree with? Poor thing. Bless your heart. So, Greg gave them something to hold onto and go on the attack with. OK. Do you think the ICA got irate over the priest comment? Or do you think they got irate because the speech was anti-vitalist, anti-subluxation?
Honestly….think about it. Let’s be smart. Which do you think it was? It should already be clear what I think it is. So, the speech is made and the vitalists lose their damned minds and the ICA decides to deal with this travesty. Nobody but the higher ups over there know exactly how it all went down but, by all appearances, it looks like they started leaning on sponsors to pull support from the WFC until changes that the ICA deemed appropriate were made. So, basically, the ICA decided to be a bully and start flexing on the playground.
They could read the tea leaves and with scientists like Kawchuk, Hartvigsen, and the others steering, the future wasn’t so bright for the ICA bullies so they started figuring out how to pull the purse strings. That’s what it looks like to me. It looks like companies like ChiroHealth and Foot Levelers leaned on the WFC to remove Kawchuk. In advance of that, Greg just resigned. Then, the other top-level researchers resigned in solidarity and, I would imagine, in protest to what was happening.
And I don’t blame them one bit. Here’s the thing here; it is my opinion and the opinion of others that these vendors used our money that we paid them to bully the WFC at the urging of the ICA to oust Kawchuk. And it is my opinion that they used one sour comment to do it. When I feel pretty sure that they bullied the WFC simply because they didn’t like that the speech and the research committee seemed anti-subluxation. Here are the companies that pulled support simultaneously at this pivotal time for the WFC:
Standard Process
ChiroHealthUSA – USA
Chiro Diplomatic Corps
NCMIC – USA
National Chiropractic Council – USA
Koala Mattress – Australia
Life Chiropractic College West – USA
Life University – USA
Lloyd Table Inc – USA
Breakthrough Coaching – USA
Chiropractic Education Australia Ltd. – Australia
Da Vinci Labs – USA
Integrated Assessment Services Inc. – Canada
Japan Federation of Chiropractic Professionals – Japan
Mettler Electronics Corp. – USA
Tokyo College of Chiropractic (Formerly RMIT University) – Japan
Sidecar
It looks like vendors like ChiroHealth, Foot Levelers, and several others used the money we paid them, to then turn around and bully the WFC research committee because they gave a speech that was anti-subluxation. Used. Our. Money. I repeated that for a reason. They use our money to get rid of the world’s biggest and best researchers because they didn’t like what they said. On the other hand, these are the companies that continued to financially support and sponsor the WFC:
Palmer College of Chiropractic
Parker University
Logan Chiropractic College
New York Chiropractic College
Southern California University of Health Sciences
University of Bridgeport
University of Western States
National University of Health Sciences
Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College
Anglo European College of Chiropractic
Madrid College of Chiropractic
Nordisk Institute
Dynamic Chiropractic
The American Chiropractor
Chiropractic Economics
I would like to thank this group that chose to continue to support the WFC, thus continue to support research and science. Thank you for not being bullied by the ICA and the loud minority. Now, let’s be fair. Maybe it was just that times are tough. COVID has us all down. I know it’s got me down. Did they pull or reduce support for the WFC because of the ‘Rona? How are we to know? I don’t know. You don’t know either. But it seems pretty danged coordinated in conjunction with Dr. Kawchuk’s resignation doesn’t it? I mean….doesn’t it? It’s your choice to continue working with these companies but I’ll tell you this much, being evidence-based as I am….I will be second-guessing my commitment and participation with them going forward.
Honestly, how could you not? As my colleague so eloquently stated to me, “Their power is our power.” Again, nobody knows the exact motivation of these companies. I sure as hell don’t. I just know what it looks like. What if enough of us contacted these companies and griped about this? We can collectively tell them we don’t approve of that sort of influence. We don’t approve of them using our money to bully our research community.
What if this were to serve as a rallying cry for activism over apathy? For a bunch of crappy stuff to take place, all it takes is for good people to just sit on their hands and do nothing. This can be a rally cry for the WFC and Dr. Goertz, for the ACA, CARL, for the FTCA, and for this Chiropractic Forward Podcast. But, as my esteemed colleague said, there’s a cover charge to getting your voice heard and social media doesn’t quite cut it. Now, how much of all of this was theater and how much was legitimate?
If Kawchuk was going to be let go because of the financial pressure by the ICA and these companies, was his resignation simply to keep the ICA from getting a win? It seems they reduce exposure by just going to their universities and doing their research there anyway. They’re not out front taking all of the heat and they’re still doing all of their research and all that anyway. Makes you wonder why anyone would want to be out front like that anyway, doesn’t it? I don’t think it was theater.
I think Greg got tired of dealing with the vitalist crap and said to hell with you people. I think the ICA bullied these companies and the WFC to push him out under the guise of a priest comment but really because they didn’t like the anti-subluxation sentiment of the research coming out of the WFC. And I think the companies did exactly what the ICA wanted them to do. So, I think the vitalists and subluxation people won at the end of the day. It’s all looking like a bunch of stinky garbage on the part of the vitalists but, sometimes those unafraid to get down in the slop are the ones that win the battle. Doesn’t mean they win the war. Just the battle.
Here’s what I believe. I believe right and truth win every single time. Eventually. So, let’s look at it from that perspective. There are mountains of papers supporting spinal manipulative therapy. There is a paucity as the researchers say….a paucity of solid, respectable research backing the vitalistic, subluxation theory that was generated in the late 1800’s. Here in 2020..it just hasn’t formulated into a solid, well-researched fact, folks. I’m sorry. Don’t punish the messenger. Anecdotal evidence and charismatic gurus with guitars don’t make it true or make it right.
Here’s something else I believe strongly, when you have people like McCoy and Edzard Ernst setting the narrative for our profession because we’re not willing to discuss something openly, well, then we’re just asking for it, folks. You either want a well-respected profession or you don’t. Or, do you want a split all together? The Primary Spine Practitioner program through the University of Pittsburgh may be a good first step for some of you that are bent on the separation. Can’t we all just get along? I don’t see it happening. I really don’t. I don’t see how our profession can be unified.
Vitalists refuse to follow or even notice solid research that doesn’t confirm their bias. Outright refuse. They insist it’s appropriate to see regular healthy people once per week for life. Evidence says that’s not appropriate so, therefore, evidence-based chiropractors say it’s inappropriate and it gives us a bad name. So, what do you do about that? You can’t fix it. Evidence based folks can’t continue in a profession where part of the crowd makes them appear illegitimate.
Vitalists refuse to conform to any appearances of being evidence-based. So, what’s the answer? You tell me. I don’t see a clear answer. I think it lies with the middle group that is neither evidence-based or vitalistic. They’re just out there making a living and getting through their days but are pretty much apathetic to either. When something happens that activates that group, I think that’s what will be the deciding factor on where this profession goes.
I disagree with 99.9% of everything Edzard Ernst says but I agree with this comment wholeheartedly when he says, “In my view, the problem of the chiropractic profession is unsolvable. Giving up Palmer’s obsolete nonsense of vitalism, innate intelligence, subluxation, etc. is an essential precondition for joining the 21st century. Yet, doing so would abandon any identity chiropractors will ever have and render them physiotherapists in all but name, Neither solution bodes well for the future of the profession.”
I would say that he left out the fact that many PTs are now adding spinal manipulative therapy to their arsenal so maybe PTs are rendering themselves chiropractors rather than the other way around? I would also add to Ernst’s comment that a recent nationwide poll showed that people go to chiropractors to get rid of their pain. They do not go for wellness, vitalism, weekly visits, or innate intelligence talk. In the comments of Ernst’s post a chiropractor chimed in and said that in his opinion, the profession has a better chance of providing a valuable healthcare service without the ICA members which make up only about 5% of the profession tagging along and raising a stink whenever someone challenges their model or views.
Researchers should have the freedom to speak thei truth without fear of reprisal of companies that we essentially fund. It goes a hell of a lot deeper than a bad joke folks. It’s an attack on evidence-based chiropractic and an attack on the research community. And we’d better all start seeing it that way because now, the ICA has a win and you can believe they’ll be back for more. If these companies reduced or withheld funding to pressure the WFC based on the ICA’s pressure, we should let these companies know how we feel about it. I see chiropractors going forward in the world treating pain, following current research, and current widely accepted guidelines. Guidelines that are based in the research literature. I see a profession that accepts a certain standard and a profession that hopefully begins to take policing its own seriously.
Otherwise, we’ll continue to be the pimple on healthcare’s butt. And that’s the way I see it. And before anyone says it, I’ll say it first…no, I do not want to be a medical doctor. No desire at all. But being a chiropractor doesn’t mean that I have to blindly accept and promote a philosophy from the late 1800’s. They are not mutually exclusive. In any way. The adjustment is the cornerstone of my personal practice and the way I treat patients. It’s just not the end-all-be-all of what I do. And all of this mess when we are at the precipice of actually breaking through in the healthcare industry. I’ve said it so many times on this podcast but there is no better time to be a chiropractor.
Y’all, it’s a perfect storm. The opioid crisis. The research backs every freaking thing we do OUTSIDE of the subluxation theory. Literallly everything we do. Spinal manipulative therapy, exercise/rehab, low level laser, massage, acupuncture, balance and proprioceptive training, and things like that. Research backs it all up. It just can’t back up the subluxation stuff. But we are at a point that we can actually get more patients in our doors if we are a respectable, evidence-based, patient-centered profession. Again, you can disagree with me. You can cuss me. But you’ll always know where I stand and according to me, I stand for what’s right, I stand for the truth, ethics, morality, and I stand for patients and their right to be treated like respected individuals and not targets that have to be closed.
IF we can’t agree on that, then maybe you can at least respect me and respect the fact that I’m willing to make a stand for what I believe in. Because honestly, I don’t see a lot of folks standing up on this deal. Maybe it’s just me. I would assume these things would be common sense. Alright, that’s it. Y’all be safe. Keep changing our profession from your little corner of the world. Keep taking care of yourselves and everyone around you. 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.
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 – Fellow of the International Academy of Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine – Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger
CF 147 w/ Dr. Katie Pohlman – New Research, Upcoming Research, And the Need For It All
Today we’re going to be joined by the one and only, research extraordinaire , Dr. Katie Pohlman. We’re going to talk about all kinds of research-related shenanigans so just you know that you are in the right place at the right time my friend. But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music
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.
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 #147.
Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about how chiropractic helped the VA cut opioid use among veterans and then we talked about diagnosing lumbar stenosis. 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
On the personal end of things…..
This week we have a guest you’ve heard me talk about plenty of times and I’m excited to have her with us so we won’t dwell on the my personal happenings too long here.
First, we see numbers rising fairly significantly around my neck of the woods. Here in Texas, you can’t get anyone to take it seriously so we have folks walking around everywhere without a mask on. That tends to limit my interaction with people I don’t know. Of course, they’re required here in my clinic but going into a convenience store, that’s a different story.
The last time I did that the clerk and myself were the only ones wearing them out of about 10 people. That’s a little distressing. To say the least. But, it is what it is. Darwinism is a real thing. Of course I don’t wish it on anyone and every loss is tragic. But there’s also the natural progression of Darwinism. Those that go by ‘heart’ and ‘opinion’ rather than science and self-preservation…..well, that’s a more dangerous course and I wish them all luck. In the end, regardless of how many get it, we’re looking at 98% of them coming through alright. No percentage guess on how many survive but suffer ongoing issues though. I haven’t heard numbers on that.
Anyway, as far as the practice goes, we are clicking along and doing well. The new patient count is staying up there where it needs to be and the weekly visits will follow. Still around 145 last week though. I want to see that up around the 185 per week mark. Minimally.
Then we can get back to paying down debt (aka school loans) and investing rather than paying the bills and surviving. Lol. lt’s good to pay the bills and survive but we should have bigger plans shouldn’t we? Investing and being debt free is key to the later part of life and it’s hard to do so when you’re down.
Speaking of, I want to pass along some info to you guys and gals. I just finished up a book and decided I’d order 2 more off of Amazon to give out as gifts. The only other book I’ve ever done that with was one called The Easy Way To Quit Smoking by Alan Carr. I ordered several to loan out to my patients that are smokers.
This book though was about investing. I have read financial books before but, if I’m being honest, getting into symbols and specifics and all…..it’s just not my forte. My wheelhouse exists elsewhere. Which sucks because being financially sound is key to all of our lives.
Anyway, the book is called Quit Like A Millionaire by Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung. They’re a married couple with different last names. I don’t know. Young people these days do stuff different. Lol. Anyway, I am always skeptical about titles like that. Sure sure….quit like a millionaire. Riggghhhtttt. This book is different. When I said young people do things differently, these two really do. There are real, actionable steps here and I have to admit, even at 48 years old, I’m pretty jazzed about getting my numbers back up so I can jump in head first on some of these suggestions.
They retired at 32 years old. She’s got the research and the numbers behind her and I’m impressed. If I can get started on it soon, I’ll talk about it and share my experiences with you as I go along. Until then, you might check her website at https://www.millennial-revolution.com/start-here/
Introduction
Enough of that, let’s get going with our guest today. Welcome to the show, Dr. Pohlman. I appreciate you joining us today.
How are things at Parker University today?
Tell me why you became a chiropractor and then what it was that led you into the research side rather than the treatment side of the profession.
Congratulations on being the ACA Researcher of the Year. Tell me, with all of the amazing researchers doing work in the profession right now, in your opinion, what made you the pick for the award this year.
Let’s talk about your post at Parker University. Can you tell us about your day-to-day? For the research-minded listener out there in podcast land, what does the head of research at Parker do every day when you go into work?
I have a paper here that you were the lead author on called “Assessing Adverse Events After Chiropractic Care at a Chiropractic Teaching Clinic: An Active-Survellance Pilot Study” and published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics in August of 2020 so brand new stuff here(Pohlman K 2020). While unfamiliar with the other authors on the paper, I do recognize Dr. Greg Kawchuk. I got to see him speak last September in St. Louis at the Forward ’19 conference and wow….he’s an effective speaker to say the least. He’s a heavy hitter for sure. The stated objective here was to assess the feasibility of implementing an active-surveillance reporting system within a chiropractic teaching clinic and subsequently determining the frequency of adverse events after treatment is administered. Now pilot studies are basically the research before the research, right? So, what is down the road along these lines and why is this paper important to us?
Here is a quote from the conclusion of the paper that I think our listeners would find educational. You say, “Our preliminary findings identified that over 50% of patients had improved symptoms after a chiropractic encounter, whereas 8.9% of patients reported worsening symptoms and 5.0% reported new symptoms. Additionally, results from this study suggest that although most symptoms improve with care, there are symptoms that worsen or are new after care, which may not have been previously known to interns or practitioners.”
Another project you were an author on is called “Chiropractic Care of Adults With Postpartum-Related Low Back, Pelvic Girdle, or Combination Pain: A Systematic Review,” by yourself and Carol Ann Weiss et. al(Weiss C 2020). published again in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics in again, August of 2020. It was a really busy August for you apparently! The objective of this one was to conduct a systematic review assessing the effectiveness of specific chiropractic care options commonly used for postpartum low back pain, pelvic girdle pain, or a combination of the two.Can you lead us through the paper a little and talk about the abstract’s conclusion which says, “No treatment option was identified as having sufficient evidence to make a clear recommendation.”
The last paper I want to ask you about is one you were on that we covered way back in episode #68 and the paper was called “Change in young people’s spine pain following chiropractic care at a publicly funded healthcare facility in Canada.” It’s amazing how much wonderful research goes on in Canada, BTW. Anyway, it was published in Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice in March of 2019(Manansala C 2019). This one was interesting to me because it highlighted the fact that spinal pain in young people has been established as a risk factor for pain later in their life. Basically, you all wanted to see how kids respond to chiropractic. I think most chiropractors find this to be obvious given our clinical observations but the conclusion of the paper was “the findings of th epresent study provide evidence that a pragmatic course of chiropractic care, including spinal manipulation, mobilization, soft tissue therapy, acupuncture, and other modalities within the chiropractic scope of practice are a viable conservative pain management treatment option for young people.” What can you tell me about this paper? Did you learn anything new that you didn’t already know going into it?
Do you ever get tired of having a new paper come out? Is it exciting every time?
When I was at Forward ’19, I heard about a program for the first time. I had never heard of CARL before. It turns out that you are very involved. Can you tell us what it is and why it’s important?
What are you and your crew working on now? What’s coming down the line and what big questions are you hoping to get answers to?
Alright, that’s it. Y’all be safe. Keep changing our profession from your little corner of the world. Keep taking care of yourselves and everyone around you. 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.
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 – Fellow of the International Academy of Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine – Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger
Bibliography
Manansala C, P. S., Pohlman K, (2019). “Change in young people’s spine pain following chiropractic care at a publicly funded healthcare facility in Canada.” Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice.
Pohlman K, F. M., Ndetan H, Hogg-Johnson S, Bodnar P, Kawchuk G, (2020). “Assessing Adverse Events After Chiropractic Care at a Chiropractic Teaching Clinic: An Active-Survellance Pilot Study.” J Man Physiol Ther.
Weiss C, P. K., Draper C, Silva-Oolup S, Stuber K, Hawk C, (2020). “Chiropractic Care of Adults With Postpartum-related Low Back, Pelvic Girdle, or Combination Pain: A Systematic Review.” J Man Physiol Ther.
