Chris explains how chiropractors can talk to patients about nutrition without losing them. He uses a motivational interviewing framework: ask what they eat, share why it matters, then ask again. The approach gets patients to actually listen instead of tuning out.
Hey, everyone. Chris again, this is day two in the chiropractic nutrition series I'm doing. So this is all about communicating with your patients about lifestyle, nutrition, dietary changes, that sort of thing, because it's a tricky topic sometimes, and I know I used to really struggle with this. So I'm doing this every day. This week I'm going to put out a different video. This is making you aware of Simon Billings Core Concepts in Chiropractic Nutrition course. If you missed yesterday's video, you. You want to make sure that you check this out by Friday, because at the moment, if you sign up before then, he's giving out the advanced modules in the course for free, which would normally be about an extra £500. So if you want to learn more about this stuff, I highly recommend that course. I've done it myself. I vouch for it personally. There's a slight affiliate link here, meaning that if you go through this link, I get a small percentage of it. I only do this with products that I have used myself. And I've used this course for over a year. It's been made a massive difference for my patients. So check that out if you're interested. Today I wanted to talk about how we start the conversation with our patients when we're talking about nutrition, because a lot of our patients are not expecting this. When they come to see us, they see us as working on the mechanical stresses. That's what they expect us to say. And if we just bring up nutrition, start trying to get them to make changes, you'll see the eyes glaze over in a lot of people. And there's a really good way to avoid this. This is what they call in motivational interviewing. Elicit. Provide elicit epe. And it's a really simple framework for giving advice. Generally, you don't just go in and give the advice. You check, first of all, if they're ready to hear it, essentially you get permission, and then you check to see that it went in. So at the end of the examination, after I've done the abdominal palpation we talked about yesterday, what I'll do is I'll sit the patient down, I'll run them through what we found mechanically, and I'll also let them know that, by the way, based on your findings, it looks to me like we also want to be addressing some other lifestyle changes. If we're going to get you the best results, then what I will do is I'll say I have some ideas that I could share with you on ways you could help that would you be interested to hear them? Because that way I'm asking for permission and when they say yes, they've told me I'm prepared to listen to that rather than just going in straight away and assuming they'll do it. I often that's when you see the eyes glaze over. So you ask permission. That's the first e elicit. Then you provide that information, keep it as simple as possible. I'll talk about how to do this effectively later on this week. And once you provide the information, very quick, very simple, then you elicit again. This time you elicit their thoughts on it. So rather than just saying, here's what you need to do, go away and do it, I then ask them, how does that sound to you? Have you got any thoughts on that? What do you make of that? And I give them an opportunity to feed back to me what they think of it, because if they have some obstacles and I don't address those, it won't work. If they go, yeah, that's great, but it sounds like a lot of work. It sounds like a lot of time. I don't know if I've got time to start doing this sort of thing, then I can let them know I understand that. I'm going to give you some steps that are very quick and easy to implement, so I'm not going to give you anything that's going to involve you having to spend hours and hours cooking a day. That way I can address the obstacles and also if it's not gone in, I know that so I'm not caught off guard and then frustrated when they come back a few days later and say, yeah, I didn't bother with any of that stuff. So use that framework. It works for other lifestyle change as well. Anything you'd like the patient to address, epe, elicit, ask for permission, provide that information and then elicit their thoughts on it. So give that a try if you want to learn more about this stuff. I thoroughly recommend Simon's course. Check out the link below and I'll see you tomorrow for another video.
