Chiropractic Featured at Inaugural Research Conference on Integrative Medicine
Michael Devitt
The Shaw Conference Centre in Edmonton, Alberta, recently played host to the first North American Research Conference on Complementary & Integrative Medicine. The chiropractic profession was well-represented at the meeting, with 11 workshops and poster presentations examining the use of chiropractic for particular conditions and the role of chiropractors in various health settings.
Sponsored by the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine, the conference was designed to promote educational collaboration across the spectrum of health disciplines, and featured presentations from some of the world's leading researchers and health care providers on a variety of complementary and integrative approaches to care.
The first presentation related directly to chiropractic occurred at the beginning of the conference when William Meeker, DC, MPH, vice president of research at the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research, co-moderated an abstract session titled "Integrative Strategies for Low Back Pain and Cardiac Disease." The following day, Craig Nelson, MS, DC, a director of health sciences research with American Specialty Health, served as a co-moderator during an abstract session titled "Clinical Trials for Musculoskeletal Conditions."
On that same day, chiropractic and medical researchers presented a three-hour discussion, "Risks and Benefits of Spinal Manipulation: Mutually Beneficial or Mutually Exclusive?" Dr. Nelson was joined in the discussion by four other doctors of chiropractic (Gert Bronfort, DC, PhD; Mitchell Haas, DC, MA; Eric Hurwitz, DC, PhD; Greg Kawchuk, DC, PhD), along with a medical doctor, Michael Hill, MD, from the University of Calgary.
In addition to the workshops and abstract sessions, chiropractic was featured in eight poster presentations, including:
"Comparison of Mechanical Force, Manually Assisted Activator Manipulation Versus Manual Side-Posture (HVLA) Manipulation in Patients With Low Back Pain: A Randomized Pilot Study" (authored by Mark T. Pfefer, Stephan Cooper and J. Michael Menke of Cleveland Chiropractic College);
"Pain-Evoked Potential Processing in Manipulative Care: A Case Series" (authored by Joseph Di Duro of the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research);
"Integrated Collaboration in Existing Community Health Centers: Demonstrating Collaboration Between Chiropractors and Interdisciplinary Health Care Provider Teams (authored by Michael Garner of Carlington Community Health Services);
"Exploring the Integration of Chiropractic in a Primary Care, Hospital-Based Setting" (authored by Heather Boon of the University of Toronto);
"Comparative Entry Attitudes Toward Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Students of Naturopathic, Oriental, Chiropractic and Allopathic Medical Schools" (authored by Anne Nedrow of the Oregon Health & Science University);
"CAM Providers and Children in Their Care: A Survey of Naturopaths, Osteopaths and Chiropractors" (authored by Denise Adams, Heidi Amernic, Scott Best, Klim Humphreys, Tema Stein and Sunita Vohra from the University of Alberta);
"Chiropractic Use for Low Back Pain and Health Services Utilization" (authored by Sabine Moritz of the Canadian Institute of Natural and Integrative Medicine);
"Ontario Chiropractors' Knowledge, Attitudes and Beliefs about Intimate Partner Violence Among Their Patients: A Cross-Sectional Survey" (authored by Heather Shearer and Mohit Bhandari of Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College).
The Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine (www.imconsortium.org) was established in 2002, and consists of 32 schools of medicine in the United States and Canada. Its mission, according to a statement on the consortium's Web site, is "to help transform medicine and health care through rigorous scientific studies, new models of clinical care, and innovative educational programs that integrate biomedicine, the complexity of human beings, the intrinsic nature of healing and the rich diversity of therapeutic systems." The North American Research Conference on Complementary & Integrative Medicine marked the first time that all consortium centers and other leading national and international CAM networks and organizations had been invited to come together to meet and share their research findings in a single location.
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