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Back pain Back pain has become something we got used to. 35 % of 46, 860 respondents had used alternative therapies for a variety of problems, 40 % of whom had chiropractic treatment for back pain (Consumer Reports, 18). Modern medicine offers many ways to cure the disease. Lets examine two main approaches: medical and chiropractic treatment. First of all, lets compare these professions. Chiropractic medicine is, first of all, a philosophy.
It is a science, the art of health. It is a new branch of medicine, where diagnostics and treatment is made by hands of doctor. Why do we feel back pain? Chiropractic doesnt need to make many analyses to find the reason. Deep knowledge of anatomy and physiology will help him to diagnose you. Quite often his hands are able to find out something that cannot be diagnosed by professional doctors using modern equipment.
Organs and tissues of healthy person have definite shape, density and temperature. When pathologic disorders occur, there characteristics change: organs can enlarge or become denser. Chiropractics know the rule: only well-balanced organism can function without any problems. Chiropractic treatment is very accurate, so it can be used by both young and old people. It is the most effective methodic among all methods of manual treatments. Chiropractics examines patient in context of three-dimensional unity of muscle- skeletal, nervous and psychical systems.
All systems react on events of environment. Each disorder in any of these systems will cause changes in other systems and, as a result, will be a reason of osteopathic disease. Chiropractic profession examines back pain not as disease of vertebral column (in contrast to conservative medicine) but as disease of all organism. Back pain symptom is one of alarms. Three main principles of chiropractic profession are as follows: the body is a whole system; Everything is interconnected; Life is constant motion.
Does chiropractic profession have scientific research which objectively investigates their outcomes of healing? During the first visit doctor will examine your health, will make chiropractic diagnostics and will find functional disorders in muscle tissues and bone-ligament system. Some patients feel considerable palliation during the first visit. Strained muscles will relax; circulation of the blood will improve and pain will leave. Sensible hands of doctor not only improve your physical condition but give you a feeling of calm and peace of mind. However, chiropractics also use methods of modern medicine.
According to Legorreta in Archives of Internal Medicine, George DeVries, president and CEO of American Specialty Health considers that The finishing piece is going to be a complementary medicine [center] that will include chiropractic, massage, acupuncture, and probably nutrition (p. 1985). They will also make an X-ray or magnet-resonance tomography and will make other analysis (blood, pressure, etc) to diagnose you correctly. If analyses are not clear, chiropractic will ask you to make a check-up. In such a way, chiropractic profession uses methods of conservative medicine and has a lot of common at stage of diagnostic.
Still, there are differences between conservative medicine and chiropractic profession. Conservative medicine treats back pain as disorder in spine. Medicine doesnt have any philosophical foundation, in contrast to chiropractic profession. Medicine examines each disorder in organism as a separate disorder that is not interconnected with other organ. Chiropractic, on contrary, treats each disorder as disorder in work of whole system. On the other hand, conservative medicine has more professional approach to treatment of back pain.
The doctor makes a check-up and finds out all disorders in organism. Medical profession considers that chiropractic treatment is often dangerous and unnecessary. They state that chiropractics prefer to solve problem quickly making treatment painful and risky whereas effect is short-term and doubtful. However, according to Ebrall study (1992, pp. 47 - 50), a greater number of patients progressed to chronic status when medical management was chosen Doctors warn that visits to chiropractics can create complications and patient can loose time (sometimes such delay can be fatal). On the other hand, conservative medicine has problems in diagnosing the real reason of back pain. There are discrepancies between data of X-ray and intensiveness of back pain (Quite often a patient suffers from severe back pain and doctor cannot find any substantial changes in his vertebral column and vice versa).
More than? of patients who were operated on vertebral column (hernia, etc) have to make second operation. Are these professions rivals of one another? I think they are opposite. Medical doctors prefer prescribing medicines and making operations to treat low back pain, whereas chiropractic profession tries to bring relief with help of manual therapy. More and more patients visit chiropractics after treatment of medical doctors and vice versa.
Chiropractic medicine (safety spinal manipulation) is more safe that conservative medicine (using medicines that are less safe (drugs) and surgical intervention). Mosley, Ilana and Arnold (1996) (pp. 280 - 282) in their study evaluated cost of treatment for low back pain and found out that the cost of healthcare for back and neck pain was substantially lower for chiropractic patients ($ 539 versus $ 774) So, chiropractic treatment is usually cheaper that medical (including hospitalization, check-ups, analyses, surgical operations, etc). It is a drug-free alternative to conservative medicine that is often not effective. Chiropractic medicine proposes long-term benefits in comparison with hospitalization and treatment made by medical doctors, so support is consistent for the use of spinal manipulation as a treatment for patients with acute low back pain and an absence of other signs or symptoms of lower limb nerve root involvement (Shekelle, p. 1) Bibliography Consumer Reports Survey. (2000).
The mainstreaming of alternative medicine. Consumer Reports, May Ebrall, P. (1992) Mechanical Low Back Pain: A comparison of Medical and Chiropractic Management Within the Victorian Work Care Scheme. Chiropractic Journal of Australia. Vol. 22 (2) Legorreta, A. (2004). Archives of Internal Medicine, vol 164 Mosley, C. , Ilana, G. (1996) Cost-Effectiveness of Chiropractic in a Managed Care Setting. The American Journal of Managed Care.
Vol. 2 Shekelle, P... (1991). The Appropriateness of Spinal Manipulation for Low Back Pain. Project Overview and Literature Review. Rand. Santa Monica. California.
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