Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

What are the signs or clues that could give us hope for a better future for our chiropractic planet ? The question needs to be asked. Your answers will be welcome.

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

| Open in new tab

Adjust or manipulate? A chiropractic subluxation or a dysfunction of a joint or mobile segment?  Is it a Subluxation or a Segmental Dysfunction?  What is the role and importance of traditional language in chiropractic ?

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.

Interview: Is there a gap in the evidence around Vertebral Subluxation?

The G6 is an apolitical group that aims one thing and one thing only: the professional unity.

Our profession is experiencing many external questions that are reviving this crisis of identity peculiar to us. Once again, we are frantic for everything that is different from our individual universe without having a simple thought for most essential, the patient.

For many decades, the profession has survived, thanks to, accumulated clinical evidence and results obtained by adjusting vertebral subluxations.

The enthusiasm and financial collaboration of practicing chiropractors allowed the research to develop and achieve credibility as well as academic and scientific notoriety that were once non-existent.

Our social credibility is again, today, tainted by internal guerrillas of egos and non-respect. Two big losers: the chiropractic profession and patients. The winners … it’s up to you to identify them!

Our profession, like the majority of professions, has adopted “evidence-based practice”, but several interpretations have been made since of this yet simple approach. The use of scientific evidence, clinical experience and, above all, patient choice are the basis of this patient-centered approach.

For several generations, patients have been consulting in chiropractic for a variety of neuro-musculoskeletal problems and some of them have decided to keep chiropractic as a lifestyle practice in order to access optimal health. Many clinical evidences currently have not been researched, but represent a range of inexhaustible research horizons.

We must therefore move forward, together with respect for each sphere of our profession (researchers, clinicians and professors) so that all become better and offer to future generations of patients a healthy profession.

Just like any human being, our profession needs its organs to function at 100% to reach its optimal health.

I hope you understand that our request to sign this declaration of respect and unity is personal and individual.

Thank you for being a chiropractor.

Dr Richard Giguère, chiropractor, D.C.