Often pain in the back, neck or other joints is passed off as ‘wear and tear,’ or arthritis.  People are told it is old age and there is nothing they can do but suffer and take pills.  If people understood more about the process of arthritis they would think differently.  Just to open up a few thoughts on the subject; if it is age related, then your entire body is the same age so therefore you should have an equal amount of arthritis in every joint, but we know that this is simply not the case.

Arthritis in load bearing structures, such as the spine, hips, knees and ankles, particularly unbalanced arthritis, is usually the result of unbalanced load on these structures.  A person with bad posture, such as large forward head carriage, will unevenly load the vertebrae, which as a result deform and change shape to better bear this load.  This deformation occurs because of Wolf’s Law of bone remodelling and while it takes years to create permanent deformation of the bone, the initial catalyst is simply poor posture.  By correcting posture, you balance the load on the vertebrae and slow down or halt the process, protecting your spine for the future.
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For patients who already have arthritis as a result of long standing bad posture, moving the affected area with Chiropractic adjustments, and strengthening postural muscles will again reduce the load on the arthritic joints and have a very good chance of reducing the symptoms suffered.  While some of the symptoms of arthritis emanate from the joint, many come from the supporting structures; the ligaments and muscles.  These supporting structures are sending pain signals as they are still carrying the load of the unbalanced posture, and it is these symptoms that can be significantly reduced with treatments such as chiropractic adjustments and corrective exercises.

I was sent a recent article from MJA Insight.  I have copied the first section below.  For the full article go to:
https://www.mja.com.au/insight/2016/15/spinal-fusion-surgeries-questioned

Spinal Surgeries Questioned.

SPINAL fusion surgeries for chronic low back pain are on the rise, despite the lack of research to back their efficacy, and experts are now calling for tighter guidelines, including a waiting period.

Dr Richard Williams, orthopaedic surgeon and spokesperson for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, told MJA InSight that a key regulation should be that patients must wait a period of 12 months before a spinal fusion surgery was performed.

During this time, the patient must undergo aggressive rehabilitation to try to lose weight and reduce their back pain. 

"Most patients will recover after these 12 months,” he said. "It's also the duty of the doctor to set realistic expectations for the patient, and explain that spinal fusion rarely results in having no pain at all. The surgery works for a proportion of patients, not all."

Dr Williams was commenting on an article published online by the MJA which discussed the controversy around spinal surgery for chronic low back pain. The authors wrote that there was a continued lack of evidence when it came to the benefit of spinal fusion for low back pain. 

In 1999, a Cochrane review found there were no published randomised controlled trials which established effectiveness of fusions for chronic pain. A 2005 review was critical of the outcomes measured, saying that the limited evidence on the long-term effects of either surgical decompression or fusion remained a matter of concern, given the numbers and the costs of the surgical procedures being performed. 

The authors wrote that patients were presenting with high expectations of modern medicine, and in many cases there were additional entitlements to monetary gains from workplace injury compensation and third-party incidents.

“There has been a lack of patient-oriented surgical outcomes, and there is a lack of outcomes for most things that we do for chronic low back pain,” they wrote.

While the spinal fusion procedure remains controversial, it would be valuable for spinal surgeons to undertake a national audit of patient-centred outcomes for the procedure, the authors concluded...  (Please go to the above link for the rest of the article.)https://www.mja.com.au/insight/2016/15/spinal-fusion-surgeries-questioned

There has been a lot in the media lately about a Melbourne chiropractor who posted a video of himself adjusting a baby.  This has sparked a media furor and attack from the political arm of the medical profession in Australia.

​I have copied the official response to this by the Chiropractic association of America and attached the link in an attempt to diffuse some of the propaganda and misinformation that is being propagated.

Letter to Fox and Friends WeekendLetter to Fox and Friends Weekend

April 28, 2016 
It is important to note that there is no medical treatment for colic other than to wait for it to resolve on its own. However, contemporary evidence indicates chiropractic care for children is both safe and effective for a variety of pediatric conditions including infantile colic. A 2012 study of colicky babies found daily crying time decreased by 48 percent in those babies who received chiropractic care compared to 18 percent in babies who received no chiropractic treatment.

1 - In regard to the safety of chiropractic manual therapy for children, a 2014 review examined all published cases of serious adverse events in infants and children caused by practitioners of manual therapies – doctors of chiropractic, doctors of osteopathy, medical doctors, physical therapists, etc.  The authors found 12 reported cases of serious adverse events (seven of which involved a chiropractic physician) and three reported deaths (none of which involved a doctor of chiropractic) in over 115 years of literature.  The authors concluded, “Published cases of serious adverse events in infants and children receiving chiropractic, osteopathic, physiotherapy, or manual medical therapy are exceedingly rare. There have been no cases of deaths associated with chiropractic care reported in the academic literature to date.”

2 - Chiropractic care is utilized by millions of children and parents who bring their children to a chiropractic physician are highly satisfied with the care and experience. In a 2008 study that examined 781 pediatric patients under 3 years of age (73 percent under 13 weeks) who, combined, received 5242 chiropractic treatments over a 3-year period, 85 percent of parents reported improvement in their children’s symptoms.

3 - In the future, please reach out to ACA with any questions or concerns your media outlet may have on issues relating to the safety and efficacy of pediatric chiropractic care.

Sincerely,

David A. Herd, DC
President, American Chiropractic Association


1.Miller JE, Newell D, et al. Efficacy of chiropractic manual therapy in infant colic: a pragmatic single-blind, randomized controlled trial. J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2012;35(8):600-607.


2.Todd AJ, Carroll MT, et al. Adverse events due to chiropractic and other manual therapies of infants and children: a review of the literature.  J Manipulative Physiol Ther 2015; 38(9):699-712. 


3.Miller JE, Benfield K. Adverse effects of spinal manipulation therapy in children younger than 3 years: a retrospective study in a chiropractic teaching clinic. Jour Manip Physiol Ther 2008;31(6):419-422.

Link to actual response

http://www.acatoday.org/News-Publications/News/Letters-to-the-Editor/Letter-to-Fox-and-Friends-Weekend