Science of Chiropractic and How it Works

Accreditation of Chiropractic

As mentioned in history of chiropractic the founder believed subluxation(minor mis-alignment) was the cause of all problems in the body. However, many chiropractors nowadays use up to date research in their treatments and also participate in research to improve chiropractic reputation. AHPRA which is the organization of Australian health practitioners also acknowledge chiropractors as legit health practitioners.

In my opinion, not all chiropractors are evidence based, there are chiropractors who still believe in the old subluxation theory. I’ve heard there are chiropractors that doesn’t even touch their patients at all, and even chiropractors who support anti-vaccination. These are of course based on their own circumstances and beliefs, I don’t blame them as long as they keep those beliefs to themselves and fix their patients’ conditions.

Where is the cavitation(popping noise) coming from?

The sudden distraction of cartilage creates vacuum inside it, which creates heat and cavitates.

How does back pain get better by back cracking?

We need to understand how the spine works in order to understand how chiropractic works. The spine moves in segments, and multiple segments move together in one direction in order to complete a certain movement. For example, when I turn my head left, my cervical (neck) vertebrae will move left, starting from the top segment. The more I turn left, the more vertebrae moves. If one of these joints become stiff and don’t move well, it will make the nearby joints move more (compensation) and end up causing sprain to these joints.

Chiropractic cracks these stiff joints in certain directions and make it move better. That’s why when we do the same movement again after chiropractic adjustments, patients feel less pain because it reduces the compensatory movements.

Of course, not all back pain is from sprains. Chiropractors are trained in finding out if it is a simple sprain or more serious condition and where the compensations are coming from. Also it’s not just the cracking that we do, we also do things like spinal decompression and rehabilitation exercises for different conditions which is what we call  Multi-disciplinary practice.

What if it is a serious condition?

Chiropractors are trained with orthopedic assessments which physiotherapists and orthopedic doctors also use. These are tests that we do before doing adjustments. There are also different types of serious conditions and the stages of those conditions. For example, disc injuries are divided into of bulge, protrusion, herniation, and etc. Up to a certain stage of disc injury, we can treat it by natural therapies like chiropractic. If we thinks the patient’s recovery is difficult by natural therapy, we refer out for CT or MRI or cortisone injection or to surgeons.