The Medical Realm Stifles the Validity of Chiropractic Care Paper Example

Introduction

Chiropractic care is best known for its emphasis on spinal manipulation therapy making it the largest complementary and alternative medicine profession in the United States. Chiropractic is known for its holistic approach to medical care because of it traditionally limited the use of surgery and drugs to help the patients maintain their health. As a result, it has become popular in public health activities across the United States. Additionally, chiropractic care providers have extended their reach to reach the underserved and rural populations. Currently, there is a shortage of physicians across all sectors of healthcare in the country. While the whole of American society will be affected by this shortage, the vulnerable and underserved rural populations will be more affected.

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Social injustice already exists in the health care sector as the minority groups are confronted with both limited access to health care services as well as receiving poorer quality of care. In this paper, I argue that doctors of chiropractic care may be in a better position in addressing the health care crisis in the country by reducing the gap in health care provision. This is especially so because chiropractic care is not only useful for people of all age groups but has extended provision of care to the underserved and diverse populations in the country. The paper will be review existing literature regarding the effectiveness of chiropractic care.

Literature Review

Data on Chiropractic Workforce in the Country

Research on the diversity of the chiropractic practitioners was primarily informed by articles from PubMed published between December 2006 to date. To get relevant information on the issue of keywords such as chiropractic, diversity, competency, and minority were used. The research in most articles focused on the data regarding chiropractic practitioners and students in the chiropractic profession. According to Barnes et al. (2008), the majority of chiropractic practitioners are white. However, there is diversity as the minority groups including blacks, Asian, Hispanic, and Native Americans are slightly represented. Currently, a comparison of the overall percentage of races reveals an overrepresentation of the white Americans and the deficit in all other groups. Unfortunately, the future is also not that promising as Christensen, Kollasch, & Hyland, (2010) maintained that by 2050, the current disparity would only be extended as more white people take up chiropractic profession than any othergroup in the United States. Conversely, the diversity of the American population is increasing as more and more people are coming into the country making the racial diversity even more conspicuous.

Contrary to the high percentage of female chiropractic patients, the majority of the practitioners are male. It is estimated that female patients make up to 60 percent of total chiropractic patients. The statistics also indicate that the sex of medical graduates is usually proportionate to the general population of the country (Hawk et al. 2010). When the chiropractic institutions are compared, there is a similar trend as for the medical practitioners already in the field as local racial distribution is highly misrepresented. Sadly, Hoy et al. (2014) reported that the profession is far from reaching proportional representation even by the year 2050. The research suggested that a more diverse chiropractic workforce will potentially improve the health care services to the public. For instance, there is a perception that racial minority health care providers including women are more likely to reach out to the minority populations and people of all ages.

Furthermore, when patients get medical assistance from providers they can relate with regarding same racial or ethnic background tend to express more satisfaction with the care provided. Therefore, having more females in the chiropractic would be better for the patients as the majority of them are women. Improving the diversity of the workforce would mean achieving a racial representation that is reflective of the local situation. Not only will the practitioners be more effective in meeting the needs of the patients on a community level, but also the doctor-patient interaction will be improved resulting in more effective health care results. More culturally competent chiropractic doctors are likely to improve the access of health services to the minority groups and improve the quality of care received by these groups.

Chiropractic Practice

According to Weigel et al. (2014), estimates of the general population that uses chiropractic services in the country range between 3% to 19 percent. Interestingly, chiropractic is the least preferred form of alternative/ complementary medicine. Doctors recommend physiotherapy or osteopaths to chiropractic. The practitioners predominantly treat musculoskeletal problems such as spinal cord and back pains. There are a lot of people suffering from back pains in the country. Research by Hoy et al. (2014) revealed that more than 15 percent of the total patients with back pains consult a chiropractor. The services of a chiropractor also include neck pains which they treat with upper spinal manipulation. Barnes et al. (2008) found out that chiropractors deliver 90 percent of total spinal manipulations in the country. Other forms of treatment include electrotherapy, cold, and heat.

In some cases, the chiropractors, usually known as mixers can advise on lifestyle adjustment, weight loss, or relaxation. There is maintenance chiropractic care which the organizations promote as a preventive measure for most visceral and musculoskeletal problems. Doctors advise against such manipulations describing them as unnecessary and argue that they may present problems to the patients.

Pediatric Visits to Chiropractors

In a 2010 survey, Christensen, Kollasch, & Hyland, (2010) estimated that there are over 30million child visits to chiropractors per year in the country. In Boston alone, there were over 42000 visits by children the same year. More recent studies found out that 10 percent of total visits to chiropractors in the US is for people under the age of 20 years based on data collected between 2006 to 2009, which included records from 145 chiropractic clinics throughout eleven months. Surprisingly, 43 percent of the visits were for children less than 1-year-old, and 75 percent of this group was just over three months old. Fifty percent of the cases were presented to treat excessive crying. In the case of children over four months old to 3 years, the parents/guardians were concerned about the mobility and developmental delay in their children. Hawk et al. (2010), conducted a study across 20 states in the country that surveyed 956 chiropractors were 890 of them reported that about 9 percent of their patients per year were children. This can be translated to around 19,820 pediatric visits to the chiropractic clinics per month.

In another study, Vohra et al. (2007), found out that 58 percent of pediatric visits to such clinics are meant to treat musculoskeletal problems, neurologic complications followed at 23.8 percent and the rest for non-musculoskeletal problems. The highest number of children treated for non-MSK conditions was the 0-2 months' age group where 19.6 percent were treated for sleep disorders and crying and a majority of 37.3 percent being treated for constipation and colic. Other conditions presented by the children in this age group included plagiocephaly, kinematic Imbalances due to Suboccipital Strain, and torticollis. In contrast, 2-5 years' age group majority was treated for musculoskeletal conditions at 65 percent. The rest were treated for a headache, and nose, ear, and throat problems.

The effectiveness of Chiropractic Care

Hoy et al. (2014) conducted a systematic literature review on the issue of chiropractic care with a particular focus on older adults. Results from a high-quality randomized controlled test (RCT) established that through chiropractic care did not result in a considerable reduction in pain, disability due to pain was significantly improved at 12 weeks. Two RCTs of lower quality than the first one referred above found that manipulation reduced pain among the older adults improving their upper body functionality. The same studies mentioned a slight increase in the possibility of the older patients declining their lower body functions. Fascinatingly, all the users of chiropractic care in most of the reviewed articles mentioned that they were satisfied with the services received maintaining an improved quality of life. From the materials examined in the study, 80 percent of the researchers found no severe or adverse outcomes on patients who underwent chiropractic treatment.

Safety of Chiropractic Care

Contrary to the common belief, chiropractic care is safe for people of all ages ranging from the children of less than two months old to the older adults. Barnes et al. (2008) established that there are no serious adverse effects related to the intervention in senior adults. However, there are sporadic cases where some adverse effects manifest. Opponents of chiropractic care have linked the increase in the risk of suffering from vertebrobasilar artery stroke and cervical artery dissection with the use of chiropractic care. In 2015, a systematic review of the literature concluded that there is no causal link between cervical artery dissection and chiropractic care. Another study by Hawk et al. (2010) disapproved the earlier mentioned claim of increased risk of vertebrobasilar artery stroke. Spinal manipulations are feared to cause changes in blood flow in the vertebral arteries in healthy young males. To investigate this proposal, Vohra et al. (2007), conducted biomechanical research concluding that changes in blood flow were at best negligible. Despite the findings by various studies and researchers, American Heart Association maintains that before undertaking any cervical manipulation of any kind, patients should be informed about the risk of cervical arterial dissection.

Risks and Benefits

Like most treatments, chiropractic care also has its side effects which in most cases include muscle stiffness and soreness which can only be described as minor. However, the vast research available on chiropractic found no significant side effects. Among the children chiropractic patients, studies found no evidence of adverse events. On the contrary, the services have helped children with developmental problems especially with mobility recover faster (Hawk et al. 2010). On the case of senior adults, evidence suggests that chiropractic care is likely to reduce chances of stroke which contradicts the opponents' view that incidences of stroke are high among the chiropractic patients.

Furthermore, new evidence indicates that older people who are undergoing chiropractic treatments specifically manipulative procedures of the peripheral joints and the spine and mobilizations are experiencing a variety of positive medical outcomes (Christensen, Kollasch, & Hyland, 2010). Most patients are expressing a high level of satisfaction with their care more with chiropractic care more than any other complementary treatments. Conclusive evidence on the risks of chiropractic treatment is largely absent. Claims by most clinicians against this approach to medical care have been proved wrong over the years with continued research.

Limitations of the Study

The main limitation of this study is that it heavily relied on expert opinion through a consensus process because the literature on the effectiveness of chiropractic care in different age groups is limited. Additionally, most of the research used on this paper is conduc...