095- Why a Low Force Chiropractic Technique is Essential

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Hello and welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I am your host Dr. Jeff Langmaid. This week we are talking about why having a low velocity technique in your practice is essential and what the research says about it. Before we get started I will say a few words about Rock Tape. Rock Tape is revolutionizing soft tissue again with Rock Blades Mohawk. Featuring three tools in one Surgical stainless steel hand polish tool, two attachments, a silicon sleeve and an ABS comb, Rock Blades Mohawk unlocks never before seen treatment protocols to reduce pain, improve mobility and address issues like nerve glide and neuropathy. And at 1:75 it is a steal. Learn more and explore education courses Feature featuring mohawk@rocktape.com Mohawk Also, I received my personal Rock Blade Mohawk in the mail just this week. It got thousands. I did a live unboxing of it. So if you haven't checked that out on Facebook, check out the Evidence Based Chiropractor on Facebook and watch a live unboxing. Check out all the packaging and the tool itself at the Evidence Based Chiropractor Facebook page. And today, as I said at the top, we are talking about why having not only a high velocity technique gonstead high velocity diversified, a good example. All of those are essential. They're what I do every day when I take care of patients. But I will also tell you having a low velocity technique in your practice is absolutely essential to spanning the gamut and also to building relationships. And today we are going to talk about a European Spine journal article from 2006 and it is titled A Randomized Clinical Trial and Subgroup Analysis to Compare Flexion Distraction with Active Exercise for Chronic Low Back Pain. I'll read that one more time. This is from European spine journal in 2006. The title is A Randomized Clinical Trial and Subgroup Analysis to Compare Flexion Distraction with Active Exercise for Chronic Low Back Back Pain. And if you've been listening to the Evidence Based Chiropractor, let me take a little bit of an aside. If you have been thank you. We reached over 5000 chiropractors every single week for perhaps the last month. So if you've been listening, thank you research and marketing and the time it takes to get to your office every single Monday. I will have one big ask of you if you have not left feedback or a review on itunes. I just actually updated my iPhone literally today. And you can leave if, if you are listening to this on your iPhone, you can like leave ratings and reviews for this podcast right now on your iPhone direct from the podcast application. So if you get an opportunity to do that, I would really appreciate it. It helps more and more chiropractors find out about what we are doing here at the Evidence Based Chiropractor. But anyway, back to the research. A randomized clinical trial, an rct if you have been listening, you know an rct, a randomized clinical trial is the top tier of what we look at from a research point of view. And this study compares flexion distraction, which we all know, low force manual traction with mobilization technique with active exercise trunk stabilization as typically performed, let's say by a physical therapist or by a chiropractor in their active care phase for chronic low back pain patients. And patients receiving the chiropractic technique experienced significantly greater reduced perceived pain according to the VAS than those allocated to the active exercise group. And these findings also support previous research which shows flexion distraction to be an effective at reducing pain and disability relating to disc and nerve root pathologies. So very, very important research. Let's listen to a few quotes from this direct paper and then we will talk about its impact. So again, I'm gonna repeat the title one more time. And it also in the show notes a randomized clinical trial and subgroup analysis to compare flexion distraction with active exercise for chronic low back pain, European Spine Journal, 2006. The researchers found subjects randomly allocated to the flexion distraction group had significantly greater relief from pain than those allocated to the exercise program. Better results, bar none. The researchers also found subjects categorized as chronic with moderate to severe symptoms improved most with the flexion distraction protocol. I'm going to repeat that one more time. The researchers found subjects categorized as chronic with moderate to severe symptoms improved most with flexion distraction protocol. These are patients that have been in pain longer than three months. These are patients with moderate to severe symptomatology and and they improve the most with flexion distraction, which makes sense if you think about the technicality of it. Deflection distraction open ups the canal, it reduces the discogenic pressure and it also takes pressure off of the nerve roots. Ultimately, the flexion physically opens up the canal and the distraction provides decompression. So that makes sense. Absolutely, compared with just strengthening through active exercise strengthening symptomatic tissue. But it's nice to have the research to stand behind that. And finally, the researchers found, quote, a Greater decrease in VAs among patients with radiculopathy should be expected for the flexion distraction group where changes in disc pressure may be most important. Again, just hammering what I just said. The decrease in pain can be related to directly to the decrease in disc pressure which is a hallmark of flexion distraction technique. And to me now taking a step back and let's talk about its implication in your practice, you may choose to use flexion distraction. You may also choose to use another low velocity technique. I think it's very important to be able to have that gamut as we go through. For all of our members of the evidence based chiropractor that utilize our program to build relationships with other providers and gain more referrals coming into their practice. We talk about during that meeting with a medical doctor. After you go through your Socratic method, learn what they're doing and find out where you can value add. It's very, very important to emphasize the breadth of what you do. Now. You don't want to hammer anybody over the head at minute one with chiropractic technique that they're not going to understand. But again, once you've engaged, once you've talked about things, once you've asked questions using the Socratic method, then you can come back and start to inform and educate regarding the gamut of treatments offered in your office. And here's where really the rubber meets the road regarding that and why it's so important is that you can imagine a primary care physician, they don't know anything about chiropractic care at all. They just know what they've seen on TV or in a cartoon or something else. All they know the high velocity technique, quintessential to chiropractic care. But when they see an elderly individual, I've said this before, but it's important to really understand. When they see an elderly individual who comes into their practice, or even a youngster that's in pretty severe pain. And we just talked about, remember that quote, just said moderate to severe symptoms. People that are in serious, serious pain, they're experiencing big time challenge when they walk in, in that flexed posture, that antalgic gait, they are not doing well. They walk into their primary care doctor office if they think the only option that you offer is a high velocity adjustment, they just don't physically understand that how that can help a patient. They think of that big force, that fast force and they see a person in pain and, and the last thing that they want to do is send somebody out who comes back and says why did you send me there? Now I want to be very, very clear about this. You may see that individual and decide that a high velocity technique is in their best interest. But I want you to understand that when a primary care who knows nothing about the technique, all they can envision is a high velocity adjustment and they choose to go to physical therapy because they just feel it is less stress and strain on the patient. This is where it is important to be able to bring up and have them understand not only if you do active care, that you, that you do active care and that you believe in it and that's something you either do in your office or guide the patient with at home instruction, but also that not only do you have the high velocity technique typically associated with chiropractic care if you do, but that you also offer low velocity techniques for those patients that might be served better by it. And that is absolutely essential. And when you have research like this as we talked about today, to back it up, to back up what you're saying and the science behind what you see each and every day and you can place that content, the research into the proper context as we're talking about today, you start to really develop a potent opportunity to develop relationships. And as you know, that is all about what we are about at the Evidence Based Chiropractor. So that is why I think a RCT showcasing low velocity technique, just as we talked about today, is exquisitely important in showcasing your practice in the best practice light. If you want to go about that yourself, download some of our tools, head to the evidencebasedchiropractor.com, you can check out under resources a bunch of free tools, downloads, tips, guides, all that fun stuff. But if you want a little bit of extra help from somebody that's done it at the highest level, I invite you to join me and the other hundred plus active members of the Evidence Based Chiropractor. You can check us out the evidencebasedchiropractor.com same place. Otherwise I will be back next week with more research and marketing in the it takes to get to your office here on the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I hope you have a fantastic week in practice and I will talk to you soon.

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