Conservative health care got a real boost last year when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) created the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM). The creation of the new government office is a response to the fact that an increasing number of Americans are turning more and more to alternative health care options for relief of common ailments (e.g., back pain, headaches, arthritis), and for such life threatening diseases as cancer and AIDS.
The growing disillusionment with medicine, coupled with the astronomical costs associated with that care, has opened the government's eyes to investigate the role of alternative medicine in the grand scheme of health care.
Heading up OAM is Joe Jacobs, MD, a 46-year-old pediatrician. While you may wonder why an MD should oversee an office of alternative medicine, Dr. Jacobs is no stranger to unconventional care. As a boy living on a Cherokee reservation (Joe's father was part Cherokee), Joe Jacobs was introduced to Indian folk medicine by his mother, a full-blooded Mohawk. Indeed, the media coverage at times focused more on Dr. Jacob's blood line than on the OAM.
Dr. Jacob's thoughts on alternative health care did however surface. Time quoted him saying that alternative health care "could be just as good, cheaper and safer than many of the drugs and treatments we now use ..."
The OAM plans on spending two million of our tax dollars to fund a series of 10, two-year research projects involving alternative care. While it's much too early to know if one of those 10 studies will include chiropractic, the national exposure and prestige chiropractic could garner from such acceptance is tantalizing.
Stay tuned for further developments from the Office of Alternative Medicine.
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?
