Finding a Good Chiropractor

I just read a blog that critiqued a paper by Redwood and Globe. This blogger seems to live in a different chiropractic planet than I do. He believes that chiropractors should be allowed to turn patients into annuities for doctors, that is put them on extended care plans which have not been shown to be beneficial to the health of the patient.

According to Astin's, work published in JAMA, many people go to chiropractors and other CAM providers because they believe that health comes from inside our bodies not from outside. Not really a bad idea, as authors of a new study in the on-line journal PLoS Medicine report on the how much diet and lifestyle contribute to chronic disease or death. Nevertheless some of my peers seem to successfully morph a person's desire to be more self reliant with regards to their health but convincing them that getting an adjustment, a spinal manipulation, will somehow help their body to function better.

My co-authors and I have written about these beliefs in a paper about mainstreaming chiropractic. Also in the open access journal, Chiropractic and Osteopathy, I am an associate editor of C&O, is a new paper about how to choose a good chiropractor. While this paper is about finding a good sports chiropractor, I think its findings are ones that should be applied to finding a good chiropractor in general and extended treatment plans are not part of the formula for a good chiropractor.

SMP