chiropractic

Chiropractic is a health care profession that emphasizes diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine, under the hypothesis that these disorders affect general health via the nervous system. Chiropractic is generally considered to be complementary and alternative medicine, a characterization many chiropractors reject. Chiropractic treatment focuses on manual therapy including spinal manipulation and other joint and soft tissue manipulation, and includes exercises and health and lifestyle counseling. Traditionally, it assumes that a vertebral subluxation or spinal joint dysfunction can interfere with the body's function and its innate ability to heal itself.

D.D. Palmer founded chiropractic in the 1890s and his son B.J. Palmer helped to expand it in the early 20th century. It has two main groups: "straights", now the minority, emphasize vitalism, innate intelligence and spinal adjustments, and consider subluxations to be the leading cause of all disease; "mixers" are more open to mainstream and alternative medical techniques such as exercise, massage, nutritional supplements, and acupuncture. Chiropractic is well established in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia.

For most of its existence, chiropractic has battled with mainstream medicine, sustained by ideas such as subluxation that are considered significant barriers to scientific progress within chiropractic. Vaccination remains controversial among chiropractors. Chiropractic has had a strong political base and sustained demand for services; in recent decades, it has gained more legitimacy and greater acceptance among medical physicians and health plans, and evidence-based medicine has been used to review research studies and generate practice guidelines. Opinions differ as to the efficacy of chiropractic treatment and the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of maintenance chiropractic care are unknown. Although spinal manipulation can have serious complications in rare cases, chiropractic care is generally safe when employed skillfully and appropriately.

Scope of practice

Chiropractors, also known as doctors of chiropractic or chiropractic physicians in many jurisdictions, emphasize the conservative management of the neuromusculoskeletal system without the use of medicines or surgery, with special emphasis on the spine. Chiropractic combines aspects from mainstream and alternative medicine: although chiropractors have many attributes of primary care providers, chiropractic has more of the attributes of a medical specialty like dentistry or podiatry. It has been proposed that chiropractors specialize in nonsurgical spine care, instead of attempting to also treat other problems, but the more expansive view of chiropractic is still widespread. Mainstream health care and governmental organizations such as the World Health Organization consider chiropractic to be complementary and alternative medicine (CAM); however, a 2008 study reported that 31% of surveyed chiropractors categorized chiropractic as CAM, 27% as integrated medicine, and 12% as mainstream medicine.

The practice of chiropractic medicine involves a range of diagnostic methods including skeletal imaging, observational and tactile assessments, and orthopedic and neurological evaluation. A chiropractor may also refer a patient to an appropriate specialist, or co-manage with another health care provider. Common patient management involves spinal manipulation (SM) and other manual therapies to the joints and soft tissues, rehabilitative exercises, health promotion, electrical modalities, complementary procedures, and lifestyle counseling.

HFM-Wirral-Complementary-Therapies-Fitness-Lifestyle-Wirral-Cheshire-Merseyside

Wirral is a Metropolitan Borough of the County of Merseyside, bordered by Cheshire. It lies between Liverpool and Chester.

chiropractic

Chiropractic in Wirral

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