UNINTENTIONAL THERAPEUTIC EFFECTS

From my 37 years of practice

By  Dr Richard Giguère, chiropractor, B.Sc. D.C.
Past president CCA  and  ACQ  , presently governor ACQ
Board members Quebec Chiropractic research foundation

From my first years of practice, I sat quietly around a table to listen to more experienced chiropractors exchange about equally rewarding clinical cases. Little miracles!

After each of these meetings, I returned to the clinic wishing to be able to live what seemed to nourish their chiropractic soul. The transmission of their observations taught me to use my senses to better understand and maintain a curiosity that still allows me, after thirty-seven years, to be dazzled by the results of chiropractic.

Like all previous generations, we have taken for granted legacies of the past without even questioning their journey. For too long we have acted in an individual, competitive and isolated way, each accumulating in our files multitudes of clinical observations. These effects  are reported to us by patients, but are not part of the desired effects during adjustment. After decades of clinical practice, these remarkably similar observations allow us to establish relationships, profiles, links that are recognized, in the majority of cases, as recurrent clinical observations or even unintentional therapeutic effects.

In the approach taken by the majority of chiropractors in the Evidence-based practice, clinicians cannot be asked to treat based solely on the evidence, which is limited. The professional’s decision must then be based on the scientific principles of chiropractic, his experience and his clinical observations. Only the clinician can establish a list of clinical observations of unintentional therapeutic effects, but they must be put at the service of all.

We now have an international research network that did not exist 20 years ago. Our researchers can establish on a scientific basis a compendium of measurable and quantifiable unintentional therapeutic effects in order to establish clinical reference tools, and thus better define the lines of research that will give the true face of chiropractic to the general public. It is essential that these recurrent clinical observations may one day be considered in the same way as the intended primary effect of chiropractic adjustment.

As such, there are several examples of drugs whose unintended effects quickly became those for which the molecule was patented. The best known is undoubtedly Viagra, a drug originally developed for low pressure in women and which now has a reputation and a brand new use. Unlike Viagra, several unintended therapeutic effects of chiropractic adjustment are known, but still not listed.

After only 126 years of existence, chiropractic has experienced many challenges that it has successfully met thanks to the results obtained and the satisfaction aroused in all these patients who, generation after generation, have welcomed chiropractic as a tool essential to their quality of life. Today, the language, perception, and image of chiropractic can be modified, adapted or even censored, but none of this will diminish the impact of the observed clinical outcomes.

Our profession has a new challenge,  it must present an image to the taste of the day while respecting its origins, its evolution and its vision. The systematic compilation of unintentional therapeutic effects with the support of a well-established research structure will allow us to move into a scientific world while respecting each other in their specific role. We need to move to a higher level of research, one to identify the physiological, biomechanical and neurological mechanisms that support these clinical observations. The chiropractic of tomorrow, we must build it today, all together with respect and complicity. We must use the right language and build bridges beyond the ditches we have dug. No one can stop our curiosity of knowledge and truth.