Matthew Amman Chiropractic

The New York Times wrote an interesting piece about current strategies to treat spinal pain.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/health/research/13spine.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The central issue of accountability was examined and when utilizing conventional methods (Medical care or Physical therapy care), therapeutic effectiveness is questionable.

What strikes me, but not to my surprise, is that chiropractic was not taken into consideration. Even though chiropractic is a large "alternative" profession, it has garnered little attention by social health and public health officials, especially at the Agency for Health Care Policy Research. This group is the recognized authority by the government (and apparently newspapers) regarding health care policy. (Personally, I think the agency does a great job.)

I suspect that as the "knowledge base" of chiropractic science grows because of grants from the National Institute of Health (NIH), the stance by Agency for Health Care Policy Research will change toward chiropractic--probably, in the next few decades.

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Chiropractic, as evident by its survival despite 75 years of American Medical Association's (AMA) resistance, offers relief to spinal pain. In my five plus years of private practice, I have noticed the following benefits in my patients:

1. Decreasing, and in many cases the elimination of pain from: 

Headaches, Migraines,

Neck pain, Middle Back Pain, Lower Back Pain,

Numbness, Tingling, Radiculopathies, Sciatica

2. Increasing Health as noted by:

Overall feeling of relaxation

Better spinal range of motion  

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Dr. Matt 

This is a wonderful book by Thomas S. Kuhn titled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn). Although discussing the emerging chiropractic paradigm is beyond the scope of this blog, it warrants being causally mentioned here.

Chiropractic (I argue rightfully so in the context of current human comprehension models) is validating itself according to the rules of the experimental science (which allopathic medicine started doing in twentienth century). Namely, chiropractors are drawing positive conclusions on the effectiveness of spinal adjustments for specific conditions like pain associated with a lumbar disc herniation. This scholarly endeavor is a wonderful task to meet the world at its current position.

However, chiropractic in its formative years started with the paradigm of one-cause one-cure. Meaning that a misaligned spinal bone depressed the function of the nervous system making the body susceptible to disease (a naturopathic concept). Value was placed upon the status of the nervous system (not the genetic code) to optimize/regain health. It was a wonderful and naive idea that later proved wrong for various reasons. Yet I believe that the profession's orginal intent, athough wrong, was admirable. Ironically, seeking out the ultimate cause of disease was similar to our quest of alchemy in the middle ages. Out of both quests came great understanding.  

Despite the flop of our original paradigm, chiropractic has transformed itself to exist quite successfully in today's healthcare system. By being holistic & naturopathic instead of mechanistic & allopathic, the profession is recognized as being natural in a growing synthetic world. [For clarification of these words please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractor .]

As Kuhn argued later in his life, the construct we call "science" is likely to be replaced by another construct. If so, maybe this new construct will solve the riddle of human disease. For the sake of everybody, I hope it does.

Dr. Matt