493- Neuroplasticity Study Reveals Chiropractic’s Impact

Welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor where each week we deliver the latest chiropractic research and marketing strategies all in the time it takes to get to your office. Now here's your host, Dr. Jeff Langmaid.

Hello and welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I AM your host, Dr. Jeff Langmaid. On today's episode we are back with more research and it is a great one. It is from Brain Sciences and it's all about how chiropractic adjustments affect the brain. We are talking pain, mood, sleep, quality of life, all of those neuroplastic changes we're gonna dive into and more on today's episode. Now before I get started, I want to announce a massive partnership we have just launched with Leander tables today. In my opinion, some of the best tables on the market, bar none. So if you are in the market for a table you're looking to upgrade your office, you could save $1,000 on one of their flexion distraction with elevation tables. Their Series 950. These tables are awesome and you can expect some behind the scenes footage across all of my social channels coming soon highlighting these tables. But if you want to get on things early, you can head over to the link down in the show notes or connect with them, let them know. Evidence based chiropractor 20. If you tell them you heard about them from me, you will save 1000 bucks on a series 950 lander tables. I've used them in my practice, couldn't recommend them more and super pumped to partner with them for the coming year. But as I said at the top on today's episode, we are talking research. One of the most groundbreaking chiropractic studies of 2024. It was released in Brain Sciences and again the title is Neuroplastic responses to chiropractic care. Broad impacts on pain, mood, sleep and quality of life. We're talking about brainwave shifts, improved sleep, reduced pain and better mood all linked to the neuroplasticity and functional brain connectivity changes that occur after you deliver an adjustment in your practice. So on today's episode my goal is to break down some of this research, highlight why it matters for you as a listener and really what you can do to communicate that to other providers in your community and certainly to your patients as well. Now often we think of chiropractic as a mechanical type intervention, but this study really changes things and it shows that what you do as a chiropractor, delivering adjustments produce neuroplastic changes in the brain. The researchers used EEG somatosensory evoked potential Fitbit data and the ProMIS 29 to track how four weeks of care affected people with chronic low back pain. Quote right off the top. Many health benefits chiropractic care are due to altered brain activity. Love that quote to kick it off. Now let's take a look at the study kind of design. There were 76 participants with chronic low back pain and they were randomized into two groups. The chiropractic group who received spinal adjustments and usual care and a control group that did not receive spinal adjustments, usual care only. This was four weeks again and the tools utilized, we just highlighted them. But EEG, SEPs, Fitbits and the Promis 29. Now the EEG and the SEPs, those were for brain and sensory motor changes. The Fitbit tracked sleep and activity and the PROMIS 29 pain, mood, fatigue and quality of life. Big take home message. Chiropractic plus usual care outperformed the usual care group alone. So this study found that both groups improved, which is great, but the chiropractic group improved more and across more of those measures. So this emphasizes the point that chiropractic is not equivalent to usual care. It actually adds measurable value and this is a really important component. I'll highlight briefly which is when another doctor or a patient is making a decision about the care that they're receiving, often it can be perceived as well it's this or that, as if they're equal items. Well, I don't know. I don't know if I need to go to the chiropractor because I'm already getting physical therapy. It's just patently false. However, that's a very common belief for not only other people in your community, certainly 99% of them to be honest with you, but, but other providers as well. And highlighting the differentiation of what you do with chiropractic, that is something different. You might still receive physical therapy, you could still go through other modalities, but also going to the chiropractor is going to provide additional benefit. These are not like, well I don't need to do chiropractic because I'm already doing that. It's kind of the same thing. I'm using air quotes. It's not the same thing at all. And it's important to utilize that differentiation in your marketing and in your messaging so that you're actually telling the truth of what the research shows. So let's dive into some of what changed in the brain and some of the findings that they had we'll start with these EEG brainwave changes. Theta, alpha and beta increases were noted in the temporal, occipital and frontal regions. So a lot going on there. These regions are involved in things like pain perception, memory, emotional regulation and movement control. A lot of good stuff there. Delta waves typically associated with brain fog were significantly reduced. And this aligns with what we have come to learn in the research. Here's a quote for you. Adjustments promote brainwave activity associated with clearer thinking, better emotional control and improved movement coordination. And again that was due to the increases predominantly in theta, alpha and beta waves. These shifts are linked to alertness, mood, cognitive control and again pain modulation as well. And this is important to just take a moment and dive deeper and highlight. These are often things we hear subjectively from our patients. And I think sometimes maybe docs who fall on the evidence based realm are like, well I don't want to talk about that publicly, quote unquote, because it's just subjective finding. This research starts to. There's no one research that does it all, but it starts to showcase there's a reason for it. It's not just because of something esoteric. These are brainwave changes as a result of what's going on. So there's a deep scientific basis for why people come in after they've been receiving care and yeah, they feel better, the pain might go down, but they also note some other changes in their life, those lifestyle impacts and effects that extend beyond the primary reason why they came in. And this study just starts to showcase that. And let's take a look at those SEP markers and they call it N30 SEP markers. N30amplitude reduction is a neurophysiological marker for improved sensory motor processing. Love this one. Especially coming out of the netcare conference last week in Iceland. A whole side story that was super awesome. But sensory motor integration was a really key component of this and it ties into what we do so well. This research found lower N30 is associated with greater neurological efficiency, especially in chronic pain patients who often have sensory mismatch and maladaptive plasticity. Remember these chronic pain patients, they get into those negative loops, so to speak, and breaking those synapses, so to speak and rerouting things is really, really important. And this brain based explanation highlights why motor control improves post adjustment. And this is really important for chronic pain patients, but we can extend that. Acute post injury athletics, all of those things. Sensorimotor integration as a human being is really, really important and if we can influence that, that is a massive benefit that people receive from chiropractic care. This reflects improved sensory motor integration and again this is more efficient communication between the brain and the body. Chiropractic group had a significant drop in N30amplitude, which is a marker of efficiency. So they highlighted chiropractic adjustments appear to normalize sensory input and reduce maladaptive plasticity. Now let's take a look at the dmn, the default mode network. The DMN changes were focused in areas like the parahippocampal gyrus, which is responsible and influenced memory and spatial navigation, the posterior cingulate cortex, pain modulation and the orbitofrontal context which is decision making and emotional regulation. These reasons showed that the chiropractic adjustments can they can influence how patients perceive pain, how they think about themselves and how they emotionally process discomfort. This is really, really powerful for your chronic pain patients or even some acute pain patients where they're in that pain catastrophizing, they're super anxious about it, they're depressed. The DMN changes that occur when somebody receives an adjustment can really impact and influence that because this network governs again things like pain processing, emotional regulation and cognitive function. Now as we move on to the Promis 29, this is all about sleep, mood, quality of life. And the total scores improved overall. But the specific domains in the chiropractic group that saw the most improvement based pain interference, physical function. These are self reported measures. Fatigue, sleep disturbance, depression, anxiety and social roles in activity. And this showcased that what we do as chiropractors influences whole person health, not spinal function alone. So the Fitbit data showed significant improvements in light sleep, which is cool. Again, the promis 29 scores less pain interference, reduced anxiety, reduced depression, reduced fatigue, improved social functioning and overall quality of life. The chiropractic group in nearly every single domain emotionally, physically and neurologically outperformed the control group. That is massive. Additionally, over 70% of the chiropractic group rated themselves as much or very much improved compared to less than 40% in the control group. That's massive. This is a powerful patient centered outcome measure that supports how chiropractic care makes people feel and function better. If that's not enough, there were sustained changes after four weeks. So instead of just a temporary response, there could be neuroplastic adaptation, which is really, really great neuroplastic changes, they take time and consistency. So over the four weeks of care, this continued on. I loved this study. I think it's a great line in the sand to say, okay, let's continue down this Road no study's perfect but this man, this really starts to set the stage for some exciting future research. It highlights the fact that the adjustments you deliver are not only biomechanical, nothing wrong with that, but they're really neurophysiological that the benefits can extend beyond pain relief to things like mood, sleep, emotional regulation, all those things you know about. But the research is finally showing and even a single session can really start to shift brain weight activity and sensory motor integration. So I highly encourage you educate your team, get people excited on your team with this, share this research, train your team and your staff to speak on some of the brain based benefits. Utilize this in your report of findings highlighting inspiring showing patients. Man, there is a path here towards relief. Again I think about MD connection through the evidence based chiropractor or flagship program you're partnering with MDS. PTSDO's showing how chiropractic care can support functional recovery at a neural level. Massive. And you can also again create content around this, blogs, videos, et cetera. This is really great stuff to be able to share and it highlights again high level evidence that chiropractic adjustments lead to real measurable neuroplastic changes. So I'm going to drop a link to this study down in the show notes as always so you can click over and check it out. I referenced a few minutes ago Neckcare Conference Neck Care conference in Iceland was awesome. They were literally MDs, DOs, PTs all together. We're talking people from Columbia University, University of Miami, Duke University, heads of Sports medicine departments, UFC was represented there. It was awesome. And if you would like to learn more about what that was about, head over to neccare.com it is literally the best functional assessment tool for the cervical spine. It's not even close. Once you go over there you're gonna want it in your practice. I'm gonna tell you right now. So head over to neccare.com, let me know I sent you and we're using this in my practice as well and I cannot recommend it enough. It's just the best assessment for neuromuscular control, proprioception and range of motion. I also want to give a shout out to turncloud. If you have not checked out turncloud, please do so. They have created an intuitive EHR application where no one needs a user manual. You can learn more@TurnCloud.com, i'll drop that link down in the show notes. Great. Simple, easy to use system. If you are a doc who prides themselves on efficiency, turncloud might be the right solution for you. Head over to turncloud.com Other than that, we are coming up, believe it or not, in the next month or so on the 500th episode of this podcast. Whether this is your first time listening or you've been following along from the beginning, this is. Well, if you've been following from the beginning, I apologize about the first few episodes. A little boring there. But if you've been following us since the beginning, thank you so much. Or whether it's your first time, really, really appreciate it. If you could leave a rating or review, that would be awesome. 500th episode we're going big. I'm going to do like massive multiple giveaways. Everybody's going to get something. So please stay tuned and pay attention Leading up to that 500th episode. I don't have plans on slowing down anytime soon. That is nearly 10 years of weekly episodes, so we're just gonna take a moment and reflect on that as we get close to 500. But thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for listening. Please leave us rating, review or feedback. I would love that. Thanks so much for being a chiropractor. Have a fantastic week in practice and I will talk to you soon.

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