Which Technique is Best?

Which Technique is Best?

And is anyone trying to find out?

There are, by some estimates, nearly one hundred chiropractic techniques (methods of analysis and/or correction of subluxations).

How do we determine if one chiropractic technique is better than another? How do we judge them?

Where is the inter-technique research (i.e. comparing one technique to another) in the chiropractic profession?

Colleges teach a variety of “core” techniques and offer others as electives. They only permit certain techniques to be practiced in their outpatient clinics.
But what is their “core” technique “package” based on? Why pick one technique over another? Is it a popularity contest? It is based on what is most familiar? What the head of the department likes to use?

This is very important because there apparently is no science behind the decision as to what constitutes “core” techniques.

That is mystifying to me since there is obviously no more important area of study in patient care than: patient care.

Shouldn’t college clinics offer chiropractic techniques (both analysis and adjustment/correction) for reasons other than “tradition” or because that’s what the technique instructor knows?

Shouldn’t chiropractic schools be at the forefront of inter-technique research?

It’s not as if that can’t be easily done.

It would be relatively easy.

Objective measures abound. There are many simple pen and paper pre-and post surveys that can be done. Network Spinal Analysis has done some wonderful research using them.

Also, what’s preventing student doctors and any clinician from taking pre- and post-adjustment blood pressure? Heart rate variability? Surface EMG (electromyelography)?

It doesn’t have to be high tech- how about height and/or posture analysis, radiographic studies, peripheral vision analysis, skin resistance and lung capacity (among others) pre and post adjustment?

A fascinating instrument is one developed by Richard Barwell, DC and his team that is a computerized assessment device known as NeuroInfiniti (NI) (www.neuroinfiniti.com). NI easily measures a host of neurological and physiological parameters that can be viewed pre and post adjustment.

Doctors who have used the device tell me they see dramatic improvements by using certain techniques, and limited or no improvements from other techniques.

Wouldn’t you like to know that technique A improves neurological integrity 20% after one adjustment while technique B improves neurological integrity 85% after one adjustment while technique C decreases neurological integrity by 5%?

Don’t chiropractors need to know this? Don’t chiropractic students need to know this?

Medical research compares drug “effectiveness.” Why shouldn’t chiropractic research compare technique “effectiveness?” This is the information we as a profession badly need. Chiropractic is neurologically and physiologically based – not condition based.

The opportunity to do the kind of chiropractic research the world needs is at our fingertips. Let’s grasp at this opportunity to show the world how powerful chiropractic really is.