The Role of Adjustment Equipment in the Chiropractic Setting
DCPI Staff
In a recent Dynamic Chiropractic PracticeINSIGHTS poll, we asked doctors of chiropractic: "What role does adjustment equipment play in your practice?" Nearly 60 percent of the 210 doctors who participated in the poll said that adjustment equipment plays a very large or important role in their practice. For example, James Wehner, of Pittsburgh, Pa., said, "Adjusting equipment (tables, etc.) are vital to a chiropractic practice."
However, while the majority of the poll takers say they use adjustment equipment in their practices, hardware is only a part of a treatment process in which manual adjustments are still crucial to most practitioners.
For example, Robert Keroson of South Carolina wrote: "When I hear 'adjustment equipment,' I think of mechanical instruments to perform an adjustment. When I put my hands in the equation, it becomes a vital role. One example of when I use a mechanical instrument is on a patient with osteoporosis, in the area of subluxation."
Within the chiropractic treatment environment, "adjusting equipment" obviously can mean anything from an adjusting in-strument to special tables, but clearly most of those who gave us additional responses were describing their use of tables.
Scott Stephenson, of Grand Blanc, Mich., had a fairly typical comment: "I perform a lot of flexion-distraction and Thompson technique on patients."
And Robert Chatfield, of California, explained: "I use a flexion-distraction-decompression table in one of my offices, but that is the extent of it."
That said, tables, while apparently the most popular form of equipment among our respondents, are by no means the only such equipment that practitioners use, including on themselves.
"I don't know where I would be with out the TepperWedge for Anteriorities," said Ron Grassi, of Jupiter, Fla. "Over the past 24 years, it has saved the carpal bones in my left wrist."
Then there are those who forego hardware altogether in favor of manual work.
As one example, Donald Ferrante of Portland, Ore., wrote: "I adjust the spine by hand. I was trained that way more than 35 years ago and it works best for me."
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?
Some pundits say that the upcoming presidential and congressional races, and many local races, might be the most consequential in our country’s history. We do not have the choice of sitting on the sidelines and hoping our patients will carry our water. Unlike other medical professions such as physical therapists, podiatrists, nurses, etc., the health care class (AMA) will not protect us. We must be in the game.
The most common condition affecting the shoulder is rotator-cuff disease. From acute tears to chronic tendinopathy, it’s common and needs a thorough workup. In fact, even asymptomatic shoulders can have full-thickness rotator-cuff rears in up to 40% of instances. Let’s look at additional conditions that can present to the office with weakness, loss of motion and pain in the shoulder beyond rotator-cuff tears.
