A doctor stuck in antiquity and stumped by an intractable problem does not merely cease to compute. He/she ceases to exist! A doctor of chiropractic practicing in the 1990s with a logic based on the early 1950s is like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there.
History is full of people who thought they were right -- absolutely right, completely right without a shadow of a doubt. And because history never seems like history when you are living and experiencing it, it is tempting for us (doctors and students) to think the same. In other words you are not a part of the paradigm shift on an ongoing, ever-changing, constantly modifiable thought process. Cocooned within this illusion it is easy to look into the past and smile at the touching naivete of some of our forefathers while remembering the small, but scientific, database from which they worked and created the chiropractic profession. Smiles might turn to despair as we detect notions, not merely as intellectual thought processes, but the very fabric of their personal views and interpretation of the scientific reality; the things that are the results of such a process are often placed upon the unscientific backs of things that are not. We in the 1990s can return at anytime if we choose to the confident image of the inexorable march of time and progress. A march that has brought us (the chiropractic profession) to a new realism, a mature perspective of the world of chiropractic and its workings that has divested it of the metaphysical and the mystical. This realism is something like the scientific attitude and even if we know nothing of it we certainly know about it. The future beckons with a vision of ever-growing competence and a deeper understanding of the chiropractic way of life, built upon the certain foundation of pragmatic experience and objective investigation which follows the concepts of those doctors of chiropractic who stress the rigid doctrines of observation and experimentation. In this way the sun of chiropractic comprehension and understanding is imagined to rise, evaporating the mists of mysticism, illuminating chiropractic's way through clouds of obsolescence and the dark shroud of the complacent and the unknowing.
The development of our understanding of the chiropractic world around us and within us has been a long and painful process. At first we were impressed by the irregularities and vagaries of chiropractic: instant cures and miracle remedies -- the out of ordinary events that were so remarkable or beyond mortal comprehension that they assumed a place in our history, legends, and memories. From this appears to have grown gradually an appreciation that the "out-of-the-ordinary" requires an "ordinary." And what characterizes the ordinary is its reliability, its predictability, and its exploitability. The systemization of the predictable aspects of chiropractic came forth to form a static model that is rewarding and rewarded. It is simply the replacement of our observations of chiropractic subluxations (BOOP, bone out of place) by abbreviations, (T1-PRI), which retain some or all of the information inherent to the chiropractic world. This of course has evolved to the current state of the chiropractic subluxation complex and it includes the dynamic concept of motion palpation.
As we look back at the growth of chiropractic we find that it is closely linked to concepts. The concepts of individuals, (some advancing and some retarding chiropractics growth), of measuring, counting, surveying, observing, inventing and of making patterns and diagnosis from these concepts. If we focus on the activity of chiropractic today we find that it is indistinguishable from the science of all the component parts of the subluxation complex. There is a reason for this. Chiropractic works as a way of life and as a description/prescription of the effects of the world today and the things that occur within it relative to our well-being and homeostasis. The little squiggles that we make on pieces of paper (S.O.A.P. notes) seem to tell us about the ultimate structure, normal or dysfunctional, of our patients and the subsequent workings of our minds. While this is indeed a reason, it is not an explanation. Why should chiropractic work? Why should the governments of the world dance to the chiropractic tune? Why do things keep following the pathway put forth in the 1960s (see my closing remarks for this reference). Is there some secret connection between then and now? Is it just a coincidence; or is there just no other way that things could be? Most of the things we do are at best only partially successful. The systems of thought, technique and practice that we codify and seek to follow rarely work out as planned. Reality has a habit of diverging from the path planned for it by the unscientific imaginings and hallucinations of historians.
From these simple questions about the ubiquity and utility of chiropractic others follow in overwhelming profusion. What is chiropractic? What is a subluxation and how do we define it? Most people find it (chiropractic) difficult; is it a natural activity for the human body; a way of life, or just a curious skill that is possessed by a few and received by a minute segment of our population?
These questions and others like them, are what motivate MPI and the paradigm shift of the 1990s. They expose a frayed edge to the tapestry of meaning that our contemplation of the chiropractic world is designed to create and embody. We see interwoven there the relation between the reality of chiropractic science around us and the images of it that we create in our minds. We find also the tension between what our minds have extracted from the scientific environment in which we are now bathed and what may have been imprinted upon us by our current educational institutions. This omnipresent dichotomy is significantly dependent upon your alma mater (with all due respect to the CCE standards). We find ourselves being drawn towards deep questions which were once the sole preserve of the college and its direction -- whatever that may be. No longer do our students take as gospel truth what is taught -- (see Dynamic Chiropractic, February 25, 1994 issue, page 18). During the last 100 years there have been those who saw in chiropractic the closest approach we have to absolute health -- this could be true as chiropractic is a way of life. But, what is chiropractic to you? Do you address all the components of the subluxation complex? If you do, then chiropractic can become for you and your patients a way of life.
How does all of the above rhetoric fit with the subluxation complex. At some point in the early 1960s, so I have been informed, the ACA Journal published an article about the fact that a subluxation was in fact much more than a bone out of place (BOOP). This subluxation complex was made up of: neurological, kinesiological, muscular, histological and biomechanical components and to ignore these various components in your treatment was tantamount to doing but a small portion of your job, in other words the patient went elsewhere to receive treatment to those areas of the subluxation complex that were left untreated by the chiropractor. This fact is substantiated by the revelation that although we have more DCs than ever, more practice management courses and companies, and are seeing more new patients -- our patient retention rate has dropped. You see the chiropractic subluxation complex and its complete treatment is a way of life. Chiropractic care is a way of life and this way of life demands that all aspects of it be treated. You may be very happy in your practice with hitting them high and hitting them low, taking their money and letting them go. But it is not a chiropractic subluxation complex way of life, nor is it scientific.
MPI, the subluxation complex and a scientific rationale are in a harmonious, contiguous relationship that is ever changing on a time continuum. MPI will continue to bring to the chiropractic profession the latest in scientific data as it applies to the subluxation complex of the 1990s.
Keith Innes, DC
Scarborough, Ontario
Canada
Editor's Note:
Dr. Innes will be teaching his next Spine 1 (S1) May 14-15, 1994 in Kansas City, Missouri and his next Extremities 1 (E1) May 21-22, 1994 in St. Louis, Missouri.
When sports chiropractors first appeared at the Olympic Games in the 1980s, it was alongside individual athletes who had experienced the benefits of chiropractic care in their training and recovery processes at home. Fast forward to Paris 2024, where chiropractic care was available in the polyclinic for all athletes, and the attitude has now evolved to recognize that “every athlete deserves access to sports chiropractic."
It is estimated that 61% of patients with CTS avoid taking surgical options due to postoperative complications and costly surgical procedures. Chiropractic care offers a comprehensive and effective treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome, addressing the condition from multiple angles. Recent studies also have unveiled a game-changing adjunct to chiropractic treatments for CTS: nerve flossing.
Some doctors thrive in a personality-based clinic and have a loyal following no matter what services or equipment they offer, but for most chiropractic offices who are trying to grow and expand, new equipment purchases help us stay relevant and continue to service our client base in the best, most up-to-date manner possible. So, regarding equipment purchasing: should you lease, get a bank loan, or pay cash?
