Articles

Misinformation, chiropractic, and the COVID-19 pandemic

In March 2020, the World Health Organization elevated the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic to a pandemic and called for urgent and aggressive action worldwide. Public health experts have communicated cl...

Authors: Iben Axén, Cecilia Bergström, Marc Bronson, Pierre Côté, Casper Glissmann Nim, Guillaume Goncalves, Jeffrey J. Hébert, Joakim Axel Hertel, Stanley Innes, Ole Kristoffer Larsen, Anne-Laure Meyer, Søren O’Neill, Stephen M. Perle, Kenneth A. Weber II, Kenneth J. Young and Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde

An unusual postural headache: a case report

This paper presents a case of an evolving unusual thunderclap headache that presented to a chiropractor.

Authors: Henry Pollard and Rachel Pollard

Assessing forces during spinal manipulation and mobilization: factors influencing the difference between forces at the patient-table and clinician-patient interfaces

Spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) and mobilization (MOB) effects are believed to be related to their force characteristics. Most previous studies have either measured the force at the patient-table interface o...

Authors: Jérémie Mikhail, Martha Funabashi, Martin Descarreaux and Isabelle Pagé

Informed consent, duty of disclosure and chiropractic: where are we?

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen the emergence of unsubstantiated claims by vertebral subluxation-based chiropractors that spinal manipulative therapy has a role to play in prevention by enhancing the body’s imm...

Authors: J. Keith Simpson and Stanley Innes

Feasibility study: one year fortnightly follow-up of the evolution of supra-spinatus degeneration via text-messages

The clinical follow-up of patients for degeneration of the supraspinatus tendon is limited by the lack of objective assessment of pain evolution over time. We therefore tested a new method to collect follow-up...

Authors: Karl Vincent, Olivier Gagey and Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde

Reported 1-year prevalence of occupational musculoskeletal disorders in Ontario chiropractors

Chiropractors are a particular subset of health care professionals that reportedly suffer occupational musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), yet they have received minimal attention to date regarding mitigating ri...

Authors: Samuel J. Howarth, Anser Abbas, Sheilah Hogg-Johnson and Silvano Mior

Attitudes, beliefs, and practices among Swiss chiropractors regarding medication prescribing for musculoskeletal conditions: a national Q-methodology study

Swiss chiropractors have been licensed since 1995 to prescribe from a limited formulary of medications for treating musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions. In January 2018, this formulary was expanded to include add...

Authors: Peter C. Emary, Mark Oremus, Taco A. W. Houweling, Martin Wangler and Noori Akhtar-Danesh

Determining Trendelenburg test validity and reliability using 3-dimensional motion analysis and muscle dynamometry

The hip abductor muscle group stabilises the pelvis during gait to prevent excessive pelvic drop. Hip abductor weakness has been linked to musculoskeletal conditions such as chronic low-back pain. As such, it ...

Authors: Luke McCarney, Alexander Andrews, Phoebe Henry, Azharuddin Fazalbhoy, Isaac Selva Raj, Noel Lythgo and Julie C Kendall

Controlled manual loading of body tissues: towards the next generation of pressure algometer

Assessing the responses of body tissue subjected to mechanical load is a fundamental component of the clinical examination, psychophysical assessments and bioengineering research. The forces applied during suc...

Authors: Davidk W. Evans and Alessandro Marco De Nunzio

Service utilisation trends in the manual therapy professions within the Australian private healthcare setting between 2008 and 2017

Better understanding of the dynamics and temporal changes in manual therapy service utilisation may assist with healthcare planning and resource allocation. The objectives of this study were to quantify, descr...

Authors: Reidar P. Lystad, Benjamin T. Brown, Michael S. Swain and Roger M. Engel

Patient safety in chiropractic teaching programs: a mixed methods study

Patient safety research has lagged within academic settings, including chiropractic teaching institutions. To develop a robust patient safety culture, the Institute of Medicine emphasized the need for employee...

Authors: Katherine A. Pohlman, Stacie A. Salsbury, Martha Funabashi, Michelle M. Holmes and Silvano Mior

Taping for conditions of the musculoskeletal system: an evidence map review

Taping is a common treatment modality used by many rehabilitation providers. Several types of tapes and taping methods are used in the treatment of musculoskeletal dysfunction and pain.

Authors: Zachary A. Cupler, Muhammad Alrwaily, Emily Polakowski, Kevin S. Mathers and Michael J. Schneider

Beliefs, perceptions and practices of chiropractors and patients about mitigation strategies for benign adverse events after spinal manipulation therapy

Approximately 50% of patients who receive spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) experience some kind of adverse event (AE), typically benign and transient in nature. Regardless of their severity, mitigating benign...

Authors: Martha Funabashi, Katherine A. Pohlman, Rachel Goldsworthy, Alex Lee, Anthony Tibbles, Silvano Mior and Greg Kawchuk

The prevalence of psychosocial related terminology in chiropractic program courses, chiropractic accreditation standards, and chiropractic examining board testing content in the United States

Spine related disorders entail biological (somatic), psychological, and social factors. Though biological factors are often emphasized, psychosocial considerations may not be receiving proper attention in the ...

Authors: Jordan A. Gliedt, Patrick J. Battaglia and Benjamin D. Holmes

The bench-top accuracy of the VerteTrack spinal stiffness assessment device

The assessment of spinal stiffness by manual palpation in clinical settings has demonstrated both poor accuracy and reliability. More recently, mechanical methods for assessment of spinal stiffness have demons...

Authors: Anika Young, Michael S. Swain, Gregory N. Kawchuk, Arnold Y. L. Wong and Aron S. Downie

Predictors of low back disability in chiropractic and physical therapy settings

Predicting ongoing disability for chronic non-specific low back pain (LBP) is important to avoid prolonged disability.

Authors: M. John Petrozzi, Sidney M. Rubinstein, Paulo H. Ferreira, Andrew Leaver and Martin G. Mackey

Immediate effects of cervicothoracic junction mobilization versus thoracic manipulation on the range of motion and pain in mechanical neck pain with cervicothoracic junction dysfunction: a pilot randomized controlled trial

Cervicothoracic (CT) junction hypomobility has been proposed as a contributing factor for neck pain. However, there are limited studies that compared the effect of CT junction mobilization against an effective...

Authors: Shriya Joshi, Ganesh Balthillaya and Y. V. Raghava Neelapala

Musculoskeletal pain distribution in 1,000 Danish schoolchildren aged 8–16 years

Knowledge about the occurrence and distribution of musculoskeletal problems in early life is needed. The objectives were to group children aged 8 to 16 according to their distribution of pain in the spine, low...

Authors: Signe Fuglkjær, Werner Vach, Jan Hartvigsen, Kristina Boe Dissing, Tina Junge and Lise Hestbæk

The accreditation role of Councils on Chiropractic Education as part of the profession's journey from craft to allied health profession: a commentary

Chiropractors see themselves as well positioned to provide safe, effective and economical care for the on-going financial burden that spinal pain imposes. However, in many places of the world, the chiropractic...

Authors: Stanley I. Innes, Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde and Bruce F. Walker

More published full-time researchers, early career researchers, clinician-researchers and graduate students unite to call for actions against the pseudoscientific claim that chiropractic care boosts immunity

Authors: Pierre Côté, André Bussières, J. David Cassidy, Jan Hartvigsen, Greg N. Kawchuk, Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde, Silvano Mior and Michael Schneider

Exploring supervised machine learning approaches to predicting Veterans Health Administration chiropractic service utilization

Chronic spinal pain conditions affect millions of US adults and carry a high healthcare cost burden, both direct and indirect. Conservative interventions for spinal pain conditions, including chiropractic care...

Authors: Brian C. Coleman, Samah Fodeh, Anthony J. Lisi, Joseph L. Goulet, Kelsey L. Corcoran, Harini Bathulapalli and Cynthia A. Brandt

Australian chiropractors’ perception of the clinical relevance of anatomical sciences and adequacy of teaching in chiropractic curricula

Human anatomy education is compulsory in the undergraduate curriculum in all Australian chiropractic education programs. There is very little data on clinicians’ perceptions of the adequacy of their anatomy tr...

Authors: Rosemary Giuriato, Goran Štrkalj, Tania Prvan and Nalini Pather

The clinical utility of routine spinal radiographs by chiropractors: a rapid review of the literature

When indicated by signs or symptoms of potentially serious underlying pathology (red flags), chiropractors can use radiographs to inform their diagnosis. In the absence of red flags, the clinical utility of ro...

Authors: Melissa Corso, Carol Cancelliere, Silvano Mior, Varsha Kumar, Ali Smith and Pierre Côté

Guidance concerning chiropractic practice in response to COVID-19 in the U.S.: a summary of state regulators’ web-based information

The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented changes, as many state and local governments enacted stay-at-home orders and non-essential businesses were closed. State chiropractic licensing boards play an importa...

Authors: Shawn M. Neff, Christopher B. Roecker, Casey S. Okamoto, Samuel L. Holguin, Jason G. Napuli, Ross Mattox, Nathan A. Hinkeldey and David J. Paris

Predictors of instantaneous relief from spinal manipulation for non-specific low back pain: a delphi study

There is some evidence and anecdotal reports that high-velocity low-amplitude (HVLA) spinal manipulation therapy (SMT) for non-specific low back pain (NSLBP) may immediately reduce pain in some patients. The m...

Authors: Stanley Innes, Amber Beynon, Christopher Hodgetts, Rachel Manassah, Denyse Lim and Bruce F. Walker

Management of patients with prior lumbar fusion: a cross-sectional survey of Veterans Affairs chiropractors’ attitudes, beliefs, and practices

Little is known about the preferred treatment strategies of chiropractors in managing low back pain patients with prior lumbar fusions. There are several case reports which describe chiropractic care following...

Authors: Clinton J. Daniels, Jordan A. Gliedt, Pradeep Suri, Edward M. Bednarz and Anthony J. Lisi

PROMIS® General Life Satisfaction scale: construct validity in musculoskeletal pain patients

Life satisfaction is part of subjective well-being. Measurement of life satisfaction is undertaken using self-report measures. This study aimed to evaluate the structural validity, concurrent validity, and int...

Authors: Brett Vaughan, Jane Mulcahy and Kylie Fitzgerald

Pressure pain threshold and temporal summation in adults with episodic and persistent low back pain trajectories: a secondary analysis at baseline and after lumbar manipulation or sham

People with chronic low back pain (LBP) typically have increased pain sensitivity compared to healthy controls, however its unknown if pain sensitivity differs based on LBP trajectory at baseline or after manu...

Authors: Sasha L. Aspinall, Angela Jacques, Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde, Sarah J. Etherington and Bruce F. Walker

Vitalism in contemporary chiropractic: a help or a hinderance?

Chiropractic emerged in 1895 and was promoted as a viable health care substitute in direct competition with the medical profession. This was an era when there was a belief that one cause and one cure for all d...

Authors: J. Keith Simpson and Kenneth J. Young

The effectiveness and safety of conservative interventions for positional plagiocephaly and congenital muscular torticollis: a synthesis of systematic reviews and guidance

To investigate for congenital muscular torticollis (CMT) and positional plagiocephaly (PP) the effectiveness and safety of manual therapy, repositioning and helmet therapy (PP only) using a systematic review o...

Authors: Julie Ellwood, Jerry Draper-Rodi and Dawn Carnes

Misinformation about spinal manipulation and boosting immunity: an analysis of Twitter activity during the COVID-19 crisis

Social media has become an increasingly important tool in monitoring the onset and spread of infectious diseases globally as well monitoring the spread of information about those diseases. This includes the sp...

Authors: Greg Kawchuk, Jan Hartvigsen, Steen Harsted, Casper Glissmann Nim and Luana Nyirö

Immediate effects of a lumbar spine manipulation on pain sensitivity and postural control in individuals with nonspecific low back pain: a randomized controlled trial

According to the American Physical Therapy Association, there is strong evidence to show that vertebral mobilization and manipulation procedures can be used to improve spinal and hip mobility and reduce pain a...

Authors: Jefferson Fagundes Loss, Luciano de Souza da Silva, Iã Ferreira Miranda, Sandro Groisman, Edgar Santiago Wagner Neto, Catiane Souza and Cláudia Tarragô Candotti

Inter-examiner reliability of radiographic measurements from Open-mouth lateral bending cervical radiographs

Following head and neck trauma, the involvement of the cranio-cervical junction (CCJ) and its contribution to a patients transition to chronic pain, is poorly understood. The detection of hypermobility in this...

Authors: Karthik V. Hariharan, Lauren Terhorst, Matthew D. Maxwell, Christopher G. Bise, Michael G. Timko and Michael J. Schneider

Are Councils on Chiropractic Education expectations of chiropractic graduates changing for the better: a comparison of similarities and differences of the graduate competencies of the Chiropractic Council on Education-Australasia from 2009 to 2017

The Council on Chiropractic Education Australasia (CCE-A) is tasked with assessment and accreditation of chiropractic programs (CPs) in the Australasian community. To achieve this process the CCE-A has develop...

Authors: Stanley I. Innes and Amanda Kimpton

Attitudes to functional neurology and some other ‘prescriptive’ chiropractic techniques and their associations with chiropractic conservatism: a cross-sectional survey of chiropractic students

Chiropractic technique systems (‘prescriptive’ techniques) might be interpreted as helpful guidelines. However, ‘prescriptive’ techniques, such as Functional Neurology (FN), Sacro-Occipital Technique, and Appl...

Authors: Marine Demortier, Guillaume Goncalves, Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde, Christine Le Scanff and Niels Wedderkopp

Neck-specific strengthening exercise compared with sham ultrasound when added to home-stretching exercise in patients with migraine: study protocol of a two-armed, parallel-groups randomized controlled trial

Migraine is a highly disabling condition and pharmacological treatment is the gold standard. However, several patients have also positive responses to the application of different manual techniques and therape...

Authors: Mariana Tedeschi Benatto, Lidiane Lima Florencio, Marcela Mendes Bragatto, Fabíola Dach, César Fernández-de-las-Peñas and Débora Bevilaqua-Grossi

Chiropractic students call for action against unsubstantiated claims

The 2019 coronavirus pandemic is a current global health crisis. Many chiropractic institutions, associations, and researchers have stepped up at a time of need. However, a subset of the chiropractic professio...

Authors: Joshua Plener, Ben Csiernik, Geronimo Bejarano, Jesper Hjertstrand and Benjamin Goodall

The Manchurian candidate: chiropractors as propagators of neoliberalism in health care

The rise of neoliberalism has influenced the health care sector, including the chiropractic profession. The neoliberal infiltration of market justice behavior is in direct conflict with the fiduciary agreement...

Authors: Jordan A. Gliedt, Benjamin D. Holmes and David A. Nelson

The use of internet analytics by a Canadian provincial chiropractic regulator to monitor, evaluate and remediate misleading claims regarding specific health conditions, pregnancy, and COVID-19

Internet analytics are increasingly being integrated into public health regulation. One specific application is to monitor compliance of website and social media activity with respect to jurisdictional regulat...

Authors: Greg Kawchuk, Jan Hartvigsen, Stan Innes, J. Keith Simpson and Brian Gushaty

Dry needling for spine related disorders: a scoping review

The depth and breadth of research on dry needling (DN) has not been evaluated specifically for symptomatic spine related disorders (SRD) from myofascial trigger points (TrP), disc, nerve and articular structur...

Authors: Matthew F. Funk and Aric J. Frisina-Deyo

A united statement of the global chiropractic research community against the pseudoscientific claim that chiropractic care boosts immunity

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the International Chiropractors Association (ICA) posted reports claiming that chiropractic care can impact the immune system. These claims clash with recommendations ...

Authors: Pierre Côté, André Bussières, J. David Cassidy, Jan Hartvigsen, Greg N. Kawchuk, Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde, Silvano Mior and Michael Schneider

The Nordic maintenance care program: maintenance care reduces the number of days with pain in acute episodes and increases the length of pain free periods for dysfunctional patients with recurrent and persistent low back pain - a secondary analysis of a pragmatic randomized controlled trial

A recent study showed that chiropractic patients had fewer days with bothersome (activity-limiting) low back pain (LBP) when receiving care at regular pre-planned intervals regardless of symptoms (‘maintenance...

Authors: Andreas Eklund, Jan Hagberg, Irene Jensen, Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde, Alice Kongsted, Peter Lövgren, Mattias Jonsson, Jakob Petersen-Klingberg, Christian Calvert and Iben Axén

Words matter: the prevalence of chiropractic-specific terminology on Australian chiropractors’ websites

Chiropractors use words and phrases in unique ways to express traditional, chiropractic-specific theories. This lexicon represents concepts that reinforce the separation of chiropractic from other health care ...

Authors: Kenneth J. Young

BAck complaints in the elders - chiropractic (BACE-C): protocol of an international cohort study of older adults with low back pain seeking chiropractic care

Low back pain is a common condition among older adults that significantly influences physical function and participation. Compared to their younger counterparts, there is limited information available about th...

Authors: Alan D. Jenks, Trynke Hoekstra, Iben Axén, Katie de Luca, Jonathan Field, Dave Newell, Jan Hartvigsen, Simon D. French, Bart Koes, Maurits W. van Tulder and Sidney M. Rubinstein

A cross-sectional study of website claims related to diagnoses and treatment of non-musculoskeletal conditions

The Danish Authorisation Act sets out the chiropractic scope of practice. Under this legislation the scope of practice is diagnostics, prevention and treatment of biomechanical disorders of the spine, pelvis a...

Authors: Rikke Krüger Jensen, Mie Elisa Irgens Agersted, Heike Aaby Nielsen and Søren O’Neill

Potential mechanisms for lumbar spinal stiffness change following spinal manipulative therapy: a scoping review

In individuals having low back pain, the application of spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) has been shown to reduce spinal stiffness in those who report improvements in post-SMT disability. The underlying mecha...

Authors: Peter Jun, Isabelle Pagé, Albert Vette and Greg Kawchuk

Life satisfaction and musculoskeletal complaints in a population seeking osteopathy care: consecutive sample of 611 patients

Life satisfaction is a component of the subjective well-being construct. Research consistently suggests that life satisfaction is associated with enhanced social benefits and improved health outcomes. However,...

Authors: Brett Vaughan, Jane Mulcahy, Thomas Allen, Emi Coupe, David Gobbo, Leila Nasser, Karen Pain and Kylie Fitzgerald

The safety of spinal manipulative therapy in children under 10 years: a rapid review

The safety of spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) in children is controversial. We were mandated by the College of Chiropractors of British Columbia to review the evidence on this issue.

Authors: Melissa Corso, Carol Cancelliere, Silvano Mior, Anne Taylor-Vaisey and Pierre Côté

Effects of manual therapies on stability in people with musculoskeletal pain: a systematic review

Chronic musculoskeletal pain is associated with reduced balance performance and falls risk. Manual therapies are commonly used interventions for musculoskeletal pain. There is emerging evidence that manual the...

Authors: Julie C. Kendall, Dein Vindigni, Barbara I. Polus, Michael F. Azari and Samantha C. Harman

Degenerative findings in lumbar spine MRI: an inter-rater reliability study involving three raters

For diagnostic procedures to be clinically useful, they must be reliable. The interpretation of lumbar spine MRI scans is subject to variability and there is a lack of studies where reliability of multiple deg...

Authors: Klaus Doktor, Tue Secher Jensen, Henrik Wulff Christensen, Ulrich Fredberg, Morten Kindt, Eleanor Boyle and Jan Hartvigsen