Chiropractic "Only Proven Effective Treatment" for Chronic Whiplash

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Chiropractic "Only Proven Effective Treatment" for Chronic Whiplash
January 1, 2000,
Dynamic Chiropractic
ChiroWeb

A new study published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Medicine1 not only points out the superiority of chiropractic care for chronic whiplash patients, but also examines which chronic whiplash patients respond best to chiropractic care. The authors begin the paper by explaining that:
"Conventional treatment of patients with whiplash symptoms is disappointing.

"A retrospective study by Woodward et al., demonstrated that chiropractic treatment benefited 26 of 28 patients suffering from chronic whiplash syndrome."2

The question was not whether chiropractic was beneficial for acute whiplash patients, but to determine "which patients with chronic whiplash will benefit from chiropractic treatment."
The authors interviewed "100 consecutive chiropractic referrals for chronic whiplash symptoms," seven of which were "lost to follow up." They were able to divide the remaining 93 patients into three symptom groups:

Group 1: patients with "neck pain radiating in a 'coat hanger' distribution, associated with restricted range of neck movement but with no neurological deficit";

Group 2: patients with "neurological symptoms, signs or both in association with neck pain and a restricted range of neck movement";

Group 3: patients who described "severe neck pain but all of whom has a full range of motion and no neurological symptoms or signs distributed over specific myotomes or dermatomes." These patients also "described an unusual complex of symptoms," including "blackouts, visual disturbances, nausea, vomiting and chest pain, along with a nondermatomal distribution of pain."

All Rights Reserved, Dynamic Chiropractic, 2007.

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