027- Improving Function and Health for an Aging Population

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Hello, welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I AM your host, Dr. Jeff Langmaid. Today we have a great episode. We are going to touch on a study that highlights how our senior population, people above 65 years old are utilizing chiropractic care and the gains that they are getting from it. It was released by JMPT in the year 2014. But before we get started, I'd like to say a few housekeeping tips for members of the Evidence Based Chiropractor. If you are a monthly member of the Evidence Based Chirop. First of all, I thank you for being a member. Secondly, I'm excited and very very happy to announce that we have started a Facebook group for Evidence Based Chiropractor members. So this Facebook group and community is going to act as a mastermind depot for all of the members to shoot ideas off of each other, to strategize and to get a lot of content that I don't really have the opportunity to present in other forums. So it's another great perk of being a member of the Evidence Based Chiropractor. If you are not a member please please check out the evidencebasedchiropractor.com and learn how and why you should be a member if you are. Again, thank you and please check out the Evidence Based Chiropractor Mastermind group on Facebook. I will add you I tried to get every member out there but I'm missing quite a few. So if you haven't seen the request come through from me it means I couldn't find you on Facebook. So please just look for the group online, let me know about it or shoot me an email and I'm happy to take care of that for you. So today as I spoke of at the top, we are going to talk a little bit about chiropractic use in the Medicare population. In the United states people above 65 years old get Medicare which is a government based insurance. So when I say Medicare population for those not living in the US it is our patients or people practice members above 65 years old. This journal article was titled Chiropractic Use in the Medicare Population Prevalence Patterns and Associations with one year Changes in Health and Satisfaction with Care. Again, it came from JMPT in 2014. Before I dive into the specifics, as always, I'll say a few words about Rocktape. Rocktape is proud to be a sponsor of the evidence based chiropractor. Rock Tape offers the world's best kinesiology tape, pain relief, topicals, mobility tools and functional fitness accessories. New from Rocktape is Rocksauce Chill Powerfully cool pain relief topical and a convenient roll on with 6% menthol. It's stronger than the Freeze competition. They are more than a tape company, they are a movement company. Learn more and get access to your medical discount@rocktape.com we're about to have their medical directors, Dr. Capo come back on Talk a little bit about Rock Blades. I posted a picture of them online the other day. I got a nice set from Rocktape Rock Blades Soft tissue tools. They are awesome and I know they're going to be diving into those deep at their summit which is coming up I believe next week. Unfortunately I'm going to be or two weeks from now and unfortunately I'm going to be in Oklahoma City for some continuing education. So I won't have the opportunity opportunity to go up there. But I can't wait to get up there check out the tools. They look great. So let's dive into this week's research. The prevalence of spine related complaints in our aging population is a growing concern due to the expected strain it will place on our healthcare system. You open up any journal from any realm of healthcare and you're going to notice that the geriatric population or the senior aged population is really going to stress the healthcare system of the world. And as our baby boomer generation, as we say, goes into that age bracket, a variety of spine complaints have been shown to directly impact a person's ability to perform activities of daily living. Spine complaints greatly affect quality of life and ADLs, there's no question about that. And with a decreased ability to perform ADLs, patients or those people will ultimately become less able to sustain independence as they age. So this study shows that an older patient who visits a chiropractor for spine related complaints will have less disability and improved self rated health at one year. Additionally, the patients report a very high satisfaction with care and depending upon the patient's history, underlying condition and examination. Of course as a chiropractor you might choose to use a variety of techniques. And I harp on this point because as I've spoke of earlier on the podcast, many other providers confuse the practice of chiropractic with the profession, meaning they just see see chiropractic as the High velocity, low amplitude adjustment. So being able to elegantly and adequately describe that there's a variety of techniques, especially for seniors, is important when building referral relationships. There are more than one tool in our tool belt and it's important to let other providers know that there is no doubt about that. Reducing pain and intradiscal pressure, maximizing range of motion and maintaining active lifestyle are examples of our treatment goals as chiropractors for those patients that are undergoing degenerative changes due to the aging process. So highlighting all of those things, highlighting the improved function, highlighting the decreased pain and highlighting the array of tools that we have available is extremely important, especially when we have research such as this. And I released this as a research brief, a monthly research brief for my members in September 2014. So we were right on top of this. This came out actually when I released this, the article was in press. I think it's important that as chiropractors again, we're highlighting what we do and highlighting in this case, it clearly shows, as we'll talk about momentarily, that the patterns and prevalence of disability is greater for those patients who don't have chiropractic care than those who do. And here's what I mean by that. I'm going to talk through a little bit of a chart here, so it might be a little bit challenging to follow, but I'm going to try to make it as straightforward as possible. When the researchers looked at function and mobility declines, they looked at that the declines in ADL's lifting, reaching and walking or ambulating several blocks, the users of chiropractic had less function and mobility declines in all four categories compared to those who had medical care only let me repeat that when looking at functional and mobility declines in activities of daily living, lifting, reaching and walking several blocks, users of chiropractic had less declines at the one year marker than those who had medical care only. So it's a testament, of course there's multiple functions going on and these individuals perhaps that are undergoing chiropractic care might be more prone to make healthy decisions. But it's an important point to make nonetheless, these researchers found the unadjusted models show that chiropractic is significantly protective against one year decline in activities of daily living, lifting, stooping, walking, self rated health and worsening health after one year. That's a powerful statement. Number two, they found, quote, recent research however suggests that chiropractic use benefits older Medicare beneficiaries by protecting them against decline in function and self rated health. So really extrapolating a little bit more information from that first quote. And finally they found evidence of chiropractic efficacy has shown a minimally effective dosing level of up to 12 treatments over a several week period, with some studies suggesting that an additional monthly treatment thereafter prolongs the benefit. So that is a very interesting point on the tail end of that third quote where they allude to the fact that there may be some research out there suggesting additional monthly treatment benefit for maintenance care, as we would say, or wellness care and prolonging that benefit. And if you've been following the evidence based chiropractor, you know one of the most controversial studies published is the Spine Spine Journal study which showed prolonged maintenance care of chiropractic being beneficial unequivocally from a research perspective. And that was a peer reviewed piece of research, top tier research in Spine Journal. So keep an eye out for that one. I know I used that as a monthly brief and I know we've touched on that one a few times. It's an extremely important study and this study alludes to it. So in short, this study again looked at chiropractic use in the Medicare population. So people above 65 years old, prevalence patterns and associations of one year changes in health and satisfaction with care. Patients that were in this study, enrolled in the study, they had an extremely high satisfaction with care, number one. Number two, they found that the declines in ADLs, lifting, reaching and walking several blocks were less if they underwent chiropractic care than if they didn't than if they had medical care alone. So another great piece of research this week that hopefully you can use every day in your practice. Literally today as you get into your practice, you'll be able to speak to those patients who are above 65 years old and really reinforce why they're coming into your office. Don't hesitate to cite the article. Also I will have the article linked directly the PubMed link in the show notes. And if you have been listening weekly or if this is your first week, I would encourage you, please. We love feedback on itunes. If you can go, give a rating, give a comment, give a star, give five stars would be preferable. But please let us know what you think because it really helps every time we get feedback on itunes. As far as the docs that are enjoying the podcast, it really helps us get out there to even more docs. Also, keep your eye out. I alluded to this last week. Keep your eye out in your mailboxes for Chiropractic Economics magazine. I have an article coming out in this week's or this month's issue. I'm very, very happy that they asked me to be a part of it. Daniel and everybody at Chiropractic Economics, please keep your ey peeled for it. I've shared it across social media, but you'll be getting it in hard copy and you'll also see some more articles to come in Chiropractic Economics by myself. So I'm excited to be a part of that. And also I think this week if you keep your eyes peeled on Facebook, I'm going to be doing some Facebook Live tests. So I'm going to get on Facebook Live this week. I'd love to interact with anybody that's on. I know Facebook's really pushing it. So if you follow the Evidence Based Chiropractor on Facebook, if you don't than you should. So please go to the evidence based Chiropractor and hit like or follow and then you can get information daily that we post to the webpage. But second to that, if you do follow it, keep your eyes peeled because I'm going to be doing some Facebook Live events starting this week so they'll kind of be spur of the moment, top of the moment. They'll probably be around dinner time, Eastern standard time, so keep your eyes peeled. I'm happy to answer questions. I got some content I'm looking forward to getting through and I think it's going to be a great week out there as chiropractors. The other thing with that and all of that, please take time this week to focus on your marketing goals. Take time to focus on you and take time to focus on your practice members. At the Evidence Based Chiropractor we promote referral relationships. We promote highlighting the chiropractic adjustment and ultimately increasing chiropractic utilization worldwide. We have members across four continents and I am thankful and grateful that people listen to me dispel some of this research so that you can use it in your practice and to better the patient care that you give each and every day. So thank you doc. Thank you for listening, thank you for caring, thank you for being a chiropractor and have a great week in practice. We will talk to you soon.

We appreciate you joining us for this episode of the Evidence Based Chiropractor. Learn more tips for explosive practice development@the evidencebasedchiropractor.com youm can also join the Premier MD monthly membership enabling you to use what you just heard to maximize results in your office. We look forward to providing you with more dynamic communication tools for immediate growth. Right here on the evidence based chiropractor.