I have been practicing chiropractic care for a while now and know the benefits of a chiropractic adjustment. Being a small and relatively young profession, chiropractic care has in the past, lacked the research to back up what we do and the effect it can have on the body. This is definitely changing with numerous research projects helping explain what how chiropractic care works. In fact one of the foremost researchers in chiropractic care, Heidi Haavik, studied at the New Zealand College of Chiropractic (where I studied) and is the head of research at the college. She has some amazing projects on the go and was featured on Seven sharp a few weeks ago talking about the effect of chiropractic care and how it can improve your sex life! Watch it here. I recently came across a research paper looking at the effect of manual therapy in Resting-State Functional Connectivity and how this manual therapy can modulate or affect pain. The results of the research were quite interesting. Continue reading to find out what they found and what it means.
In the study they used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the immediate changes in functional connectivity between brain regions that process and modulate the pain experience. Without going into too much detail on what they did and how they did it, the results suggest that manual therapies have an immediate effect on the functional connectivity between brain regions involved in processing and modulating the pain experience. They concluded that neurophysiological changes after manual therapy may be an underlying mechanism of pain relief.
What does this mean?
What this shows is more proof of the power of manual therapy, or in my case a chiropractic adjustment. Their findings indicate that following a chiropractic adjustment there are immediate changes in the brain that can be seen using a functional MRI. This is how a chiropractic adjustment works, it is more than just ‘cracking the back’. Chiropractic adjustments affect the Nervous System which is responsible for controlling and coordinating all aspects of the body.
As time goes on, more and more research will come out showing the power of a chiropractic adjustment and the effects they can have. What is most exciting with the research is that a lot of it is happening here in NZ. Have a look at Dr Heidi Haavik’s website with some of the great research she is doing. She has also written a book called 'The Reality Check' that explains her research. I will review it here soon. One thing I know that will come out of this research is something that we have known all along – Chiropractic works.
References:
Gay CW1, Robinson ME2, George SZ3, Perlstein WM4, Bishop MD5. Immediate Changes After Manual Therapy in Resting-State Functional Connectivity as Measured by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Participants With Induced Low Back Pain. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2014 Oct 2. pii: S0161-4754(14)00171-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jmpt.2014.09.001. [Epub ahead of print]
What does this mean?
What this shows is more proof of the power of manual therapy, or in my case a chiropractic adjustment. Their findings indicate that following a chiropractic adjustment there are immediate changes in the brain that can be seen using a functional MRI. This is how a chiropractic adjustment works, it is more than just ‘cracking the back’. Chiropractic adjustments affect the Nervous System which is responsible for controlling and coordinating all aspects of the body.
As time goes on, more and more research will come out showing the power of a chiropractic adjustment and the effects they can have. What is most exciting with the research is that a lot of it is happening here in NZ. Have a look at Dr Heidi Haavik’s website with some of the great research she is doing. She has also written a book called 'The Reality Check' that explains her research. I will review it here soon. One thing I know that will come out of this research is something that we have known all along – Chiropractic works.
References:
Gay CW1, Robinson ME2, George SZ3, Perlstein WM4, Bishop MD5. Immediate Changes After Manual Therapy in Resting-State Functional Connectivity as Measured by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Participants With Induced Low Back Pain. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2014 Oct 2. pii: S0161-4754(14)00171-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jmpt.2014.09.001. [Epub ahead of print]
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