Supporting the profession by Educating DCs & Sponsoring Cutting Edge Research! THE ADAMS STUDY WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOUR PRACTICE Dr. Gerry Clum Dr. Stu Hoffman ChiroSecure Malpractice Insurance Providing protection since 1991 866-802-4476 www.chirosecure .com (866) 802-4476 The following is an actual transcript of the ChiroSecure Live Event. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors. If you have any questions about the transcript or would like to request any transcripts from our previous shows, feel free to contact us at 866-802-4476. Also note, opinions expressed during these shows are not necessarily those of ChiroSecure. ChiroSecure makes no claims and accepts no responsibility for the legality or enforceability of the contents of this document. It is your responsibility to make sure that the any recommendations by the hosts or their guests are solely theirs and it is your responsibility to make sure your office and staff is in compliance with your state board rules and regulations, and any and all other governing boards, national organizations on the state and federal level you must comply with. Click the image below to visit our Event Archive to watch any past events you may have missed. Click here to get future transcripts of all events automatically. Your transcript will begin on the next page. Dr. Hoffman: Hi everybody. Dr. Stu Hoffman, President of ChiroSecure, back with you again today. As I go around the country and I sit on certain boards and in certain meeAngs all over the place I find that people are always asking how do we get a greater market share for the chiropracAc profession? It seems that no maFer what we do we're at that same level of penetraAon. I was talking to Dr. Jerry Clum about a week or so ago and he told me about this study that I said, "Oh my god, I can't believe that this even exists let alone what it has to say. Why doesn't anybody know about this?" And so we got into a liFle bit greater detail about it and I wanted to get this informaAon out to our profession. Today I have Dr. Clum with us and it's known as the Adams Study and it's really about the prevalence, paFerns and predictors of chiropracAc usage in the United States amongst U.S. adults. Number one, come on in and thank you for being with us again Dr. Clum. How are you doing today? Dr. Clum: I'm doing great Stu. Great to be back and I appreciate the opportunity. You're right, this is some great stuff we've got to talk about. Dr. Hoffman: It's really exciAng and I hope people will get a piece of this because even when we talk about the stroke issue and this and that, we've put a whole package together of informaAon and research summaries so that the doctors can be educated and talk from a professional perspecAve and here we have something that people should be talking about every single day because it's so incredible and supports what we've talked about for over 100 years and here we go. We're going to talk about it today. Do you want to just start off telling everybody how this came to be? Dr. Clum: Sure will. Before we get into any details let me just tell you to put an exclamaAon point on what you just said Stu. I, without sounding terribly over the top, I think this could be the single most important piece of scienAfic literature I've seen in my career now going on 47, 48 years. This drives home everything that we have talked about, everything that we thought we saw in our offices, everything that paAents provided us as far as feedback goes. This has quanAfied and qualified in a way that we have never ever seen before. And I'm not saying this is the last piece of research we ever need or anything of the nature but I'm just saying that this is groundbreaking and there has not been anything like it. I've got some slides prepared that would be great to go through if we could at this Ame. Dr. Hoffman: Let's do it. Dr. Clum: Okay. Thank you. First couple quesAons, your viewers and our colleagues someAmes a lot of research is a lot of yawn for them and there isn't things that are parAcularly interesAng or important to them in their office on Monday morning and this is not one of those studies. Let me walk through a liFle bit of the background of this study and tell you why I think this is important number one, and number two why it's parAcularly interesAng. First of all, this is a very current study. It was published in late 2017 and appeared in the journal Spine, a very reputable journal that we all know about and deal with papers from all the Ame. The study was conducted by non-chiropracAc researchers in Australia, Germany and Sweden. These folks don't have a dog in our fight. They don't live in our country and they're not in our profession. The basis of the study was the NaAonal Health Interview Survey from 2012. Now before somebody says, "Oh, 2012, this is 2018, you're already six years behind," well, that survey works kind of like the census. The data you get is a couple years old but it takes awhile for it to get out so the 2012 data is the latest data set from the NaAonal Health Interview Survey so this is as current as it gets. Now probably the majority of your listeners have never heard of the NaAonal Health Interview Survey. It's a product of the federal government and it is idenAfied in the paper as the principle and reliable source of comprehensive healthcare informaAon in the United States uAlizing a naAonally representaAve sample of the civilian, non-insAtuAonalized populaAon of the United States. This populaAon base, this is you and me and our families Stu. This is persons who are not in the military, this is persons who are not incarcerated, this is persons who are not wards of the state or in mental insAtuAons, et cetera. This is Joe and Mary Public that's walking the streets to ScoFsdale or San Francisco or Atlanta or New York. Now there were 42,366 households that were eligible to parAcipate in the survey. And as astonishing as it sounds, 34,525 or approximately 80% of those who had the opportunity to parAcipate in the survey did so. This is a staggering parAcipaAon level to begin with. Dr. Hoffman: Is that unique? Dr. Clum: Sorry. Dr. Hoffman: Is that kind of response unique to this or do they see that in other groups that they do studies like this as well? Dr. Clum: Let me ask you your quesAon back differently. Are you asking is this a typical response rate for someone who's analyzing NHIS data? Dr. Hoffman: That's exactly what I'm asking because it is an enormous number. Dr. Clum: Yeah. I can't answer that whether this is typical response for NHIS data. But in any survey when you've got an 80% parAcipaAon, it's over the top. Dr. Hoffman: I'm with you. Dr. Clum: Let's dig in a liFle deeper. Just to give people a taste of what's coming down the road, there's a few points I'd like to go over. According to Adams and his associates that wrote the paper, 24% of U.S. households have used the services of a chiropractor in their lifeAme. Now, this is in contrast to the Gallup data from 2016 that said that number was closer to 50%. Also, this survey says that 8.4% of Chiropractor Malpractice Insurance The Adams Study Page !2 of 10 ! the U.S. populaAon have used chiropracAc services in the preceding 12 months. That translates into, excuse me, into 54.6 million adults in the United States have used chiropracAc services and 19 million who have done so in the previous 12 months. Now this is the point where most of our colleagues eye's go dim when we start talking about the next couple data points. ChiropracAc services were sought primarily for back pain 63% and neck pain 30.2%. Now that was the primary reason. But, we also want to keep in mind the next two bits of feedback from Adams and their colleagues and this is staggering if you think about it. The majority of users reported chiropracAc helping a great deal with their health problem and improving their overall health or well-being. Now that's not Jerry Clum. That's Adams and Company straight out of the arAcle. While back pain may have brought them into the office or neck pain might have brought them into the office a significant percentage of them were approaching chiropracAc as a means to maintain or regain their overall health and well-being. And the authors went on to conclude that chiropracAc usage was idenAfied as involving a substanAal percentage of the populaAon of the United States. Let's look at the next slide and the first bits of data, first deeper data we can get from Adams and Company. And they began to look at predictors of chiropracAc use. You remember back in 1998 there was the [AsAn 00:08:57] Study. John AsAn was at Stanford at the Ame and he published a paper in JAMA as to why paAents [inaudible 00:09:03] turned to health care. And his conclusions and the conclusions of Adams parallel preFy closely. First of all person who are 30 years of age and older have a tendency to seek chiropracAc care. Persons who seek chiropracAc care are more highly educated than those who do not. Persons who seek chiropracAc are more likely to be living in a relaAonship than not. The next one is quite interesAng. Persons who seek chiropracAc are likely to be light alcohol consumers as opposed to out right abstainers. And persons with spinal pain, headache, migraine or arthriAs consult chiropractors and people who are white have a tendency to have greater use of chiropracAc services and then finally people living in the western porAon of the United States have a higher uAlizaAon of chiropracAc services. That starts to give us a liFle bit of background. You remember that AsAn talked about the fact that more highly educated persons sought chiropracAc care. He also talked about persons seeking chiropracAc care who idenAfied of being in a group that related to social jusAce, to feminism, to consumerism and so on. The Adams paper didn't get into those kind of details but everything that Adams came up with was consistent with what was produced in 1998 by AsAn. Let's go onto the next reason. The paAents were asked or the respondents to the survey were asked what were the reasons that they used chiropracAc care. Now, this is not Jerry Clum's numbers. These are not the chiropracAc profession's numbers. These are straight out of the survey. The general wellness and general disease prevenAon, 43.3% of the respondents said that's why they used chiropracAc care, 16.3% they said they use it to improve their overall energy, 15.4% said they use it to improve their athleAc and sports performance, 11% Chiropractor Malpractice Insurance The Adams Study Page !3 of 10 ! plus said they use it to improve immune funcAon and over 5% said they use it to improve concentraAon and memory. Dr. Hoffman: Okay. [crosstalk 00:11:29] I'm sorry to interrupt you. I think that creates some confusion though because we just learned that 90 some odd percent of all paAents seem to come in for low back or neck pain and now they're in the office indicaAng that they're coming in for other reasons or conAnuing to come in. Dr. Clum: Right. What got them in the door was back pain and neck pain. What maintained the relaAonship with the profession was the realizaAon, the impact of chiropracAc care on the general wellness, the disease prevenAon and all these other funcAons that never crossed their mind when they made that appointment because they had lower back pain but they're now drivers of their decision making. Dr. Hoffman: And that's what I wanted people to get. Dr. Clum: It gets beFer. It gets beFer. Let's go a liFle bit deeper and now this next quesAon is preFy staggering as well. The survey asked did chiropracAc moAvate you to, and among the choices were eat healthier. Over 10% of the populaAon said they ate healthier because they had been involved with a chiropractor. Over 21% of the populaAon said that they exercise more regularly because of their chiropracAc care. 2 1/2% said that they've cut back on alcoholic consumpAon and 6% said they've cut back on smoking consumpAon. And approximately 6% said they eat more organic food as a result of their contact and involvement with chiropracAc. Again, we couldn't make these numbers up. If you were to go to the marketplace and say, "I have a strategy that causes 21% of the populaAon to increase their exercise," you'd be a darling of healthcare and you'd be in line for a Nobel. This is the kind of feedback that the survey produced. Let's go a liFle deeper. It gets even beFer. Now think about this. They asked the paAents, "Did chiropracAc care lead to the following things?" 32 1/2% of the people surveyed said chiropracAc, having exposure to chiropracAc care gave them a sense of control over their health. Over 40% of the people that were surveyed said that chiropracAc care led to reduced stress levels and helped them relax and 42% of the people said that they sleep beFer because of chiropracAc care. Now it gets into the category where you're making this up Clum. It said that 27.4% of the populaAon said that they feel emoAonally beFer as a result of chiropracAc care. 38 1/2% said it's easier to cope with their health problems as a result of seeking chiropracAc care and overall health and improvement and made you feel beFer, 67% of the populaAon. 13.3% of the populaAon said their relaAonships with others have improved because of the chiropracAc care they received and 17% that they do beFer at school and beFer on the job in terms of their aFendance because of chiropracAc care. Staggering. I mean staggering kinds of feedback and findings. The next quesAon they went a liFle bit deeper and they said, "Well, how important was Chiropractor Malpractice Insurance The Adams Study Page !4 of 10 ! chiropracAc for maintaining health and well-being?" 47.9% of the respondents said it was very important, 29.6 said it was somewhat important and 13.9 said it was slightly important. That totals up to 91.4% of the people surveyed said that chiropracAc was important in maintaining their health and well-being to some degree with the overwhelming majority, overwhelming majority saying it was very important and somewhat important as opposed to slightly important. Now we missed out on 8.7% of the populaAon who said it wasn't important at all in terms of maintaining their health and well-being but we'll take the 91.4% and run with that. And then they ask whether the person's used chiropracAc for a specific health problem and again that was 66.9% and that's consistent with the low back, neck pain, [crosstalk 00:16:07] informaAon from the front end. Now relaAve to the care for ... RelaAve to the specific problems that they sought care for, 63.2% was back pain, 30.2% was neck pain, 13.6 was joint pain or sAffness, 9% for muscle or bone pain, headache or migraine for a liFle bit less than 5% at 4.7, arthriAs the same, 4.7 and chronic pain, 3.9%. Clearly people are seeking care for acute musculoskeletal problems on the front end. That's how they see us apparently in the marketplace and then once they engage with us, they start to see other benefits that are coming about in their life and circumstances as a result of the care and that's what they reported to Adams and his colleagues relaAve to the report that we've already gone through. Dr. Hoffman: And part of what makes this so dramaAc is that it's only talking about people that have received care in a chiropractor's office as opposed to looking at differences between the general public, people that consider going to a chiropractor or their views. These are people that actually have been there and what they get to experience. Dr. Clum: There's another nuance to that is that this ... That's absolutely true Stu. And this is chiropracAc centric, chiropracAc focused. This isn't chiropracAc and manual therapy, this isn't chiropracAc and osteopathy, this isn't chiropracAc and integrated health. This is chiropracAc, period. And just as you said, this is not the, the feedback is coming randomly from those 34,000 plus families and this is what we're seeing reflected in this. The next quesAon was did chiropracAc help for the specific problem? Let's assume that they came for neck pain or back pain, 64.5% said it helped a great deal, 25.8% said it helped some and 6.1% it helped only a liFle. Unfortunately 3.2% said it didn't help at all. So 96.4% of the populaAon received help from chiropracAc care for the specific health problems that they sought care for to begin with. Dr. Hoffman: What other health care can come away with a stat anywhere close to that? I haven't seen it. Dr. Clum: Yeah, well my knee jerk is to say nothing comes close but I don't know that and I don't know if a similar analysis that Adams did has been done with other disciplines. Though as much as we might think, "Well, this is us all alone," there maybe other surveys that show good results in other types of care and we need Chiropractor Malpractice Insurance The Adams Study Page !5 of 10 ! to be fair and acknowledge that that's a possibility but as you say, the data we have at this point reflecAng a 96% plus saAsfacAon with the care that the people received from their chiropractor is preFy remarkable. PreFy remarkable. Now, the next types of quesAon that they got into is why did you see the chiropractor to being with? And not what symptom that brought you in but why did you choose to have a chiropractor to deal with you for the symptom? Well, 6.3% of the respondents said that medical treatment as too expensive. The next one is very telling in and it's also very consistent with AsAn's feedback from '98 is that the care combined with medical care would help. That chiropracAc care together with medical care would help and that came back at 64.8%. For the chiropractor that thinks the public is in an us or them mindset this data says that's not true. This data says the public wants a cafeteria approach where they can put together their team to provide the care that they feel will be most helpful to them in their life and circumstance. To go on further with the data, the feedback was that medical care doesn't work for the specific problem, 33.8%. The next said that the medicaAons that would be used to treat their problem have side effects. That was 18.1%. And then another markeAng gem here is that 37.5% of the populaAon responded that they felt chiropracAc care was natural in its approach. And then the next takeaway is one that I think for anybody that's been in this a long Ame, the next couple are kind of heartwarming is that the consumers reported that chiropracAc care focuses on the whole person, the mind, the body and the spirit at a rate of 25% and another 82%, or excuse me, 82% said that chiropracAc care deals with the cause of the problem and not just the symptoms. And finally, 10% of the people surveyed sought chiropracAc care because it was how they were brought up and they're conducAng their lives and their parents guided and directed them. One of the great quotes to take away from the Adams paper is, "ChiropracAc services are an important component of the healthcare provisions for paAents affected by musculoskeletal disorders, (especially back pain and neck pain)." We go that. And now the kicker, "And/or for maintaining their overall well-being." I don't know of another research arAcle that addressed the overall well-being and the nature of secondary posiAve outcomes that are associated with chiropracAc care as thoroughly and as remarkably as this paper did. As I told you before at the beginning of this discussion Stu, I've never seen anything like this in my career. Dr. Hoffman: Yeah. Dr. Clum: This could be one of the most important pieces of literature you and I have ever seen. Dr. Hoffman: I totally agree. That's why I wanted it to get out there. You know, even when many years ago when I was pracAcing we only surveyed, not an official formal thing like this but I wanted to know how people were responding to our care. Chiropractor Malpractice Insurance The Adams Study Page !6 of 10 ! And it was interesAng because for whatever reasons we wound up gemng a lot of people that came to us at that point in Ame with headaches and we document that how many were on medicaAons and how many felt like they needed less medicaAon or went to their medical provider and got off the medicaAon, how many responded well, how many didn't, all of that. I thought that that was so cool because we felt so empowered in talking to our paAents because I had staAsAcs that were actual documents in our own office. This, this is from the government. It's not based on a United States bias let's call it in the healthcare environment. These were internaAonal people that took the data and put it together. And Adams was the lead, which is why I affecAonately call it the Adams study. Can you tell us anything about Adams? [crosstalk 00:24:30] Dr. Clum: When the paper came out and I saw it I was curious as to who the fellow was that was the lead behind it and I talked to a couple people in Australia and the gentleman's of Sydney. I believe it's the University of Science of Technology that he's affiliated with in Sydney. And they idenAfied him as a hardcore, hard nosed science guy who has no concern whatsoever for the poliAcs of anything that he's looking into and the facts are the facts, the numbers are the numbers, period. And I've never met the gentlemen. I look forward to meeAng him. I want to shake his hand, that's for sure. But the feedback I was given is he's a no nonsense, the facts are the facts and let's get on with it kind of guy who's not influenced by the poliAcs of the moment or the poliAcs of the condiAon or the circumstance that he's studying. Dr. Hoffman: You know, we go back together quite a bit and the original, well the first mass producAon paAent educaAon was done by Guy Riekeman and Joe Flesia under the renaissance banner many many moons ago. And to me this is your paAent educAon simng right in front of you. I can see that even though we talked at the very beginning of this about how we uAlize or how we want our doctors to uAlize all of the informaAon that's available to us on how safe it is to go to a chiropractor in the stroke conversaAon, this is it. Because when you had I believe it was 3 1/2% of the populaAon that actually went to the chiropractor did not get results that they were looking for but then again 33 plus percent of the people that came to the chiropractor came because they did not get results in the tradiAonal medical model. In pumng it all together I think that it's criAcal if we're talking everyday chiropractor in their office that the doctors have this available to them, this informaAon, so that it's at their fingerAps. I don't know that I'd be proposing go do paAent lectures just on this, I think it becomes part of your, not only your table talk but when you have a new paAent coming into your pracAce how comforAng would it be for them to know what other people have experienced in an unbiased report like this. Dr. Clum: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, no quesAon about it. You know there's another spinoff to this that will have even potenAally even greater value over Ame is that this study now gives permission to young researchers to start looking at these quesAons Chiropractor Malpractice Insurance The Adams Study Page !7 of 10 ! associated with chiropracAc care. The mood right now in the U.S. relaAve to the research community is low back pain, neck pain, headache, et cetera. It's shining, thanks to Dr. [Hovac 00:28:00] and her team from New Zealand, it's shining into a more neurologically oriented perspecAve but the rank and file of the crowd are sAll in the low back pain, neck pain, headache environment. This study put on the table with the results that it has, from the origins that it comes from is now a green light for young researchers to begin to look at chiropracAc in a different way then they have before. Even our own people, let alone people outside the discipline, our own people can look at chiropracAc beyond that neck pain, back pain, headache rouAne. Not that we're not good for those. Not that we can't help people with those problems. But we certainly don't want to be held and limited to that as being the overall impact of chiropracAc care. This not just cracks that door, it blows the door wide open for those people to start looking differently at their research quesAons and to ask different, beFer and deeper quesAons about the effect of chiropracAc care. Dr. Hoffman: It's also something that our forefathers in this profession had recognized and any of us that have taken care of paAents, we know that this stuff happens. But to have someone actually document it totally outside of our realm, on our own behalf. They didn't do it for us. This just happened to be what the outcome was. How great is that? And I think that the doctors need to take into consideraAon the fact that in our profession sure, we have poliAcal differences and we have our own bias. I only want to deal with musculoskeletal. I want to deal with a bigger picture than that. But just looking at the data, the people that like to come and work based on the fact that they're into yoga and into more natural healing and into eaAng more organic and all of these things that are evident based on parAcipaAng in a chiropracAc office based on care but in a sense it really talks a lot about creaAng a chiropracAc lifestyle based on the care that they've received. Dr. Clum: That's right. That's right. And how it helps them or allows them to look at things differently. Clearly the people that seek chiropracAc services are looking for something other than the tradiAonal healthcare that they've been raised with so they're open to change. The drive home message for me is congratulaAons to every chiropractor out there that has been telling the story about the adjustment and talking about the impact from their experience and from what they've seen in their pracAce. You now have something of substance in a scienAfic sense behind you to say, "By god, you were right and keep it up." Dr. Hoffman: Yeah. Dr. Clum: I'd liked to throw in one quesAon if I could. The tendency will be for people to get very excited about this arAcle and this literature. I'm begging people, I'm pleading with people, I'm praying just use what it says. Don't embellish, don't interpret it, don't restate it. It's magnificent as it is. It's got the power of the arAcle behind it when you quote it and use it as it's presented. When you start to modify it and bring interpretaAon into it it loses that effect. Go with what they gave us. Run far and wide with it and be honest and true to what they wrote and this will serve us for decades to come. Chiropractor Malpractice Insurance The Adams Study Page !8 of 10 ! Dr. Hoffman: It totally validates as you indicated so much of what we've been saying for so so many years but to me the even more far reaching effect of it as I was talking about educaAon, paAent educaAon it's really about the people that come into an office that may be nervous because we talked about, in one of our shows awhile back about the Gallup poll that was done through Palmer College. And as much informaAon as that provided you know it really highlighted the fact that a lot of people that won't consider going to a chiropractor won't consider it because they're afraid to have their neck adjusted. Okay, fine. But anyone that does show up in your office that may even be a liFle bit tentaAve, how comforAng would it be for them to know all of these people's experience and we're not talking a sample of 16 people like you see on CBS News at night. Brand new medical study, it's promising, 16 people. This is 42,000 people were checked, 32,000 or whatever you indicated Dr. Clum have responded, 80% of that. That's a whole lot of people for a survey to quanAfy it as totally valid. Is that not- Dr. Clum: Absolutely. Absolutely. Dr. Hoffman: [inaudible 00:33:51] Dr. Clum: And as the authors noted in the beginning of the study, this is the primary vehicle in the United States for collecAon of data and feedback to the system so this is not some random magazine survey that you take at the grocery stand. This is a remarkable piece of research based upon a very important data set. Dr. Hoffman: And it's not for today's conversaAon but I know we can have conversaAons as all chiropractors should about what else can we do with a study like this in terms of working beFer with the government, with Medicare, with insurance companies, with industry because some of the things are so profound. Like you used the 21% of the people are more encouraged to do exercise than they were before they went to the chiropractor. That is enormous and who wouldn't want some of the things that are just totally black and white in this study. I really appreciate you coming on and bringing this in such a clear concise manner to everybody as you always do. For parAcipaAng and bringing it to my aFenAon. I had no idea that it was even out there. We always look to you to be a leader in bringing the most up to date informaAon and we really appreciate all you do for ChiroSecure but really much more important, what you have done for so many years and conAnue to do for the enAre chiropracAc profession. Thanks for offering this up to us. I'd like to let everybody know that please like us on Facebook but also go to our website chirosecure.com and fill out a quick quote form if you're not already with us. We'd love the opportunity to at least offer you an opAon. We'd appreciate that opportunity. And last but not least, on your mobile device, go to your downloads and download our ChiroSecure app. You'll be able to watch presentaAons like this on your mobile device. You'll get noAficaAons. We do offer a lot of risk management Aps and a lot of people offering encouragement in a lot of different ways in terms of building your pracAce and pracAcing safe Chiropractor Malpractice Insurance The Adams Study Page !9 of 10 ! and that's what we're all about because ulAmately we want to make a change and we want to bring chiropracAc to the world and we want to do it in a safe environment. Thank you everybody and I hope you have a great day. Dr. Clum: Thank you Stu. Dr. Hoffman: If you would like a copy of this study and I would think everyone should have a copy in their own office, type ADAMS when you text us at 480-500-6574. Again, just simply text us at 480-500-6574 and type in the word ADAMS and we'll send you a copy of the study. Chiropractor Malpractice Insurance The Adams Study Page !10 of 10 ! Why is this paper interesting AND important? • The study was published in 2017 in Spine • The study was conducted by non-chiropractic researchers from Australia, Germany and Sweden • The study was based on data derived from the U.S. National Health Interview Survey, 2012 • 2012 is the LATEST set of data available from the NHIS system • NHIS is “the principal and reliable source of comprehensive health care information in the United States, utilizing a nationally representative sample of the civilian, noninstitutionalized population of the United States.” • 42,366 households were eligible for participation and 34,525 households responded to the survey—a whopping 80%! Some overview data tidbits… • In the U.S. 24% of households have used the services of a chiropractor in their lifetime while 8.4% have done so in the preceding 12 months • 9. 54.6 million adults in the United States have used chiropractic services and 19.1 million did so in the previous 12 months • Chiropractic services were sought primarily for back pain (63%) and neck pain (30.2%) • “…the majority of users reported chiropractic helping a great deal with their health problem and improving their overall health or well-being.” • Chiropractic usage was identified as involving “A substantial proportion of US adults” Predictors of chiropractic use: a. b. c. d. e. f. g. > 30 years of age More highly educated Living in a relationship Light alcohol consumers as opposed to abstainers Persons with spinal pain, headache or migraine or arthritis Being white Living in the West Reasons to use chiropractic: a. b. c. d. e. General wellness, general disease prevention: 43.3% To improve energy: 16.3% To improve athletic or sports performance: 15.4% To improve immune function: 11.4% To improve memory or concentration: 5.3% Did chiropractic motivate (you) to: a. b. c. d. e. Eat healthier: 10.7% Exercise more regularly: 21.6% Cut back or stop alcohol consumption: 2.6% Cut back or stop smoking: 5.9% Eat more organic foods: 5.8% Did chiropractic lead to: a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. Give a sense of control over health: 32.5% Help reduce stress level or to relax: 40.2% Help sleep better: 41.9% Help to feel better emotionally: 27.4% Make it easier to cope with health problem:38.5% Improve overall health and make you feel better: 66.9% Improve your relationship with others: 13.3% Improve attendance at job or school: 17.0% How important was chiropractic for maintaining health and well-being a. b. c. d. e. Very important: 47.9% Somewhat important: 29.6% 91.4% Slightly important: 13.9% Not at all important: 8.7% Used chiropractic for a specific health problem: 66.9% Specific health problem: a. b. c. d. e. f. g. Back pain or back problems: 63.2% Neck pain or neck problems: 30.2% Joint pain or stiffness: 13.6% Muscle or bone pain: 9.0% Severe headache or migraine: 4.7% Arthritis: 4.7% Chronic pain: 3.9% Chiropractic helped for specific health problem: a. b. c. d. A great deal: 64.5% Some: 25.8 Only a little: 6.1 Not at all: 3.5% 96.4% Chiropractic practitioner was seen because: a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. Medical treatment was too expensive: 6.3% Therapy combined with medical treatment would help: 64.8% Medical treatments do not work for your specific problem: 33.8% Medications cause side effects: 18.1% It is natural: 37.5% It focuses on the whole person, mind, body and spirit: 24.9% It treats the cause ant just the symptoms: 81.9% It was part of your upbringing: 10.6% “Chiropractic services are an important component of the healthcare provisions for patients affected by musculoskeletal disorders (especially for back pain and neck pain) and/or for maintaining their overall well-being.”