Chiropractic care and public health: answering difficult questions about safety, care through the lifespan, and community action.

The purpose of this collaborative summary is to document current chiropractic involvement in the public health movement, reflect on social ecological levels of influence as a profession, and summarize the relationship of chiropractic to the current public health topics of: safety, health issues through the lifespan, and effective participation in community health issues. The questions that are addressed include: Is spinal manipulative therapy for neck and low-back pain a public health problem? What is the role of chiropractic care in prevention or reduction of musculoskeletal injuries in children? What ways can doctors of chiropractic stay updated on evidence-based information about vaccines and immunization throughout the lifespan? Can smoking cessation be a prevention strategy for back pain? Does chiropractic have relevance within the VA Health Care System for chronic pain and comorbid disorders? How can chiropractic use cognitive behavioral therapy to address chronic low back pain as a public health problem? What opportunities exist for doctors of chiropractic to more effectively serve the aging population? What is the role of ethics and the contribution of the chiropractic profession to public health? What public health roles can chiropractic interns perform for underserved communities in a collaborative environment? Can the chiropractic profession contribute to community health? What opportunities do doctors of chiropractic have to be involved in health care reform in the areas of prevention and public health? What role do citizen-doctors of chiropractic have in organizing community action on health-related matters? How can our future chiropractic graduates become socially responsible agents of change?

Diagnostic challenges in the older patient.

Older patients often present with a long, complex history and a clinical picture that frequently includes co-morbidities. It is essential that health professionals caring for older patients become familiar with common age-related changes, and the specific clinical factors that complicate the diagnostic process. A case-based approach is taken in this article to explore the diagnostic challenges in caring for older patients. Three areas of focus are used: a) polypharmacy, b) cognitive issues such as delirium, dementia and depression, and c) increased odds of pathologies and chronic illnesses.

Multiple views to address diversity issues: an initial dialog to advance the chiropractic profession.

The purpose of this article is to provide expert viewpoints on the topic of diversity in the chiropractic profession, including cultural competency, diversity in the profession, educational and clinical practice strategies for addressing diversity, and workforce issues. Over the next decades, changing demographics in North America will alter how the chiropractic profession functions on many levels. As the population increases in diversity, we will need to prepare our workforce to meet the needs of future patients and society.

Collaborative Care for Older Adults (COCOA), Palmer College of Chiropractic.

Integrative medicine (IM) is a subset of interprofessional health care that seeks to join the knowledge and practices of various allopathic and complementary and alternative medicine disciplines in an attempt to offer cost-effective and clinically significant healthcare options for persons with acute or chronic illnesses. Although touted as a means for improving health outcomes and patient satisfaction while possibly lowering costs, further scientific evidence regarding the utility of IM approaches to health services delivery is needed. Collaborative Care for Older Adults (COCOA) is a chiropractic demonstration project that brings together an interdisciplinary team of researchers and clinicians from the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research, Genesis Quad Cities Family Practice Residency, The University of Iowa, and Thomas Jefferson University to study the impact of a model of interprofessional education on geriatric health care. The Health Resources and Services Administration funded COCOA in 2009 to further develop and assess a patient-centered care model for the treatment of low back pain in older adults that uses a team-based approach between medical doctors and doctors of chiropractic.

Chiropractic and geriatrics: a review of the training, role, and scope of chiropractic in caring for aging patients.

Chiropractors may be well-positioned to play an important role in health promotion, injury and disease prevention, and on geriatric care teams, due to their practice style and holistic philosophy. The bottom line in aging care is that someone in the health-care world must provide health promotion and preventive services to older patients before the wave of aged patients profoundly overwhelms our health-care system. Chiropractic services are safe and relatively low-cost, and patient satisfaction with them is very high. In the managed-care environment, time pressures on allopathic providers may preclude them from spending sufficient time discussing health promotion and illness prevention with their patients. Chiropractic, when paid for out-of-pocket, is not as affected by these extreme pressures. With the hands-on nature of chiropractic care, a strong doctor-patient relationship is forged in which health and lifestyle recommendations may be comfortably and effectively discussed. Relative to musculoskeletal care in elderly patients, chiropractic adjustments (spinal manipulative therapy) are recommended by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research for the care of acute low back pain, and the American Geriatric Society Panel Guidelines for the Management of Chronic Pain state that non-pharmaceutical interventions such as chiropractic may be appropriate. Most geriatric health-care providers have a limited number of options to offer patients with these complaints. Various lower-force chiropractic techniques are available as safe alternatives to drugs and surgery for musculoskeletal complaints in the older patient. Due to the prevalence of these conditions in older patients, and the success of chiropractic in caring for these patients, interdisciplinary geriatric health care teams should include the doctor of chiropractic. Chiropractors, well trained in health assessment, diagnosis, radiographic studies, health promotion, and illness prevention, are well-positioned to provide many primary health-care services to aging patients. This is particularly important to a nation that is straining to provide adequate geriatric health care in rural areas and areas with a shortage of health-care professionals. Continued improvements in geriatric education, and an increase in research and publication on chiropractic care of the aging patient are essential. As stated by Montes and Johnston in the Journal of Health Education: Training, as well as continual upgrading of the competencies for health educators, must include ways of dealing with the great disparities in health among populations, especially those most vulnerable and underserved. Faculty too must be prepared in ... this ever-changing health care delivery system. In a rapidly aging society, chiropractors, (along with all health professions)must prepare themselves to provide optimal health care to this important segment of our society, through excellence in chiropractic education, training,and practice.