Do Family Doctors Recommend Chiropractors?

June 22, 2020 Joshua Kiely

By Dr. Josh Kiely

The main points of today’s article:

Doctors recommend chiropractors who utilize evidence-based manual therapy, exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle modifications. Doctors want high-value care for their patients.
Pain is multifactorial and evidence shows multidisciplinary care is better.
Chiros specialize in conservative management of musculoskeletal injuries, in particular, back pain, neck pain, headaches.
Chiropractors communicate with family doctors to ensure medications and other health changes are monitored in order to be safe and effective for the patient.

Family doctors are our first stop when we’re sick.

Family doctors tend to be our first visit when we’re getting sick, and because of this, they must wear many different hats depending on the patient that walks through the door. A busy family doctor might see over 100 different conditions in a single week! This variety and broad skillset makes family doctors an integral part of our healthcare system but does not leave a lot of time or energy available for specializing in musculoskeletal care.

Family doctors are the on the front-line handling most illnesses.

Back pain, neck pain, and musculoskeletal pain have become so widespread in Canada that health agencies have created evidence-based guidelines to support healthcare workers and patients. These guidelines suggest that family doctors offer appropriate advice as the first step, rule out more serious conditions and provide medication during a short appointment.

The next step when treating persistent musculoskeletal pain involves education, manual therapy, and exercise programming. These interventions require more time in order to be effectively tailored to each individual. This is when family doctors recommend chiropractors!

There is no quick fix for A musculoskeletal injury.

A good chiropractor will book enough time for the appointment to learn about a patient’s pain as well as their stress, health history, and lifestyle. This allows the patient and chiropractor to create a plan which focuses on the patient’s preferences, current abilities, and functional goals. The patient and healthcare provider also need to spend time creating a backup plan to help when the patient encounters a setback or flare-up, which is very common when recovering from back pain or neck pain.

See this Instagram gallery in the original post

To learn more about what modern chiropractic care is, check out this blog I wrote for Ottawa Chiropractic and Sports Injury clinic in Westboro. Also, feel free to follow me on Instagram for research updates and simple strategies for adding chiropractic care and exercise to improve your health.

Pain is influenced by many factors, so a team approach works best.

Our most up-to-date research shows that stress, nutrition, activity level, mechanism of injury, and many other factors can influence pain. These factors change for every individual, and this explains why one treatment does not work for every patient with low back pain, sciatica, neck pain, or headaches. Because of this, it is helpful to have a team of experts working together and communicating effectively with each other and with the patient.

Communication between family doctors and chiropractors can result in a dramatic improvement in patients’ recovery from neck pain, back pain, headaches, and many other musculoskeletal injuries.

Chiropractors promote a healthy lifestyle and regular movement for long term success.

An evidence-based chiropractor should emphasize the importance of small nudges toward a healthier lifestyle. The progressive development of small positive habits can lead to gigantic long term improvement.

When we gently nudge our health in a positive direction toward our goals, we can achieve something special. Drastic changes can be harder to manage.

With the right support in place, patients can set and achieve meaningful health goals. When patients accomplish their goals, family doctors can often reduce medication usage with the knowledge that the patient is naturally reducing their risk of disability and disease.

High-value spine care saves everyone time and money

Low back pain is one of the most common conditions affecting Canadian adults. Low back pain costs money to treat, prevents many from working, and can lead to long-term disability. Research has emerged showing that when a patient visits a chiropractor for low-back pain, they often experience positive outcomes and fewer days off work (see Eklund et al. in further reading).

If the chiropractor is offering high-value care by following established medical guidelines, the patient has less chance of needing imaging, expensive testing, injections, or surgeries. This makes for happy patients, happy family doctors, and saves everyone time and money.

Harvard University's Michael Porter discussing high-value care and the importance of value-based care for healthcare practitioners and patients.

High-value care provides the most improvement while costing the least amount of money to the stakeholders. Examples of low-value care include overtreating an issue, overprescribing for an issue, and ordering countless advanced tests which may cost a lot of money but have no impact on treatment plans.

Some common examples where chiropractors can work with family doctors to support the patient and provide high-value care include:

Chiropractors working with a family doctor to help a patient manage osteoarthritis.
- Chiropractic care involving education, manual therapy, exercise, and lifestyle modification can reduce pain, improve mobility, and allow the patient and doctor to decrease the amount of medication necessary to cope with osteoarthritis. Effective conservative management of osteoarthritis may also help reduce the need for invasive procedures such as injections and surgery.

Coordinating management of sciatica pain to gradually reduce the need for pain medication use and limit expensive imaging.
- Chiropractors can provide manual therapy, education, and exercise advice that helps the patient return to full function without costly emergency care or unnecessary diagnostic tests and imaging.

Effectively managing acute and chronic low-back pain.
- Open communication between patients, chiropractors, and family doctors is helpful to prevent recurring doctor visits, absences from work, and reduce the risks of long-term disability. Evidence supports the use of conservative therapy for low back pain in order to reduce the need for powerful pain medications.

Collaborating with the patient and family doctor to create a plan combining medication and exercise to improve bone density and promote healthy aging.
- Being proactive while aging can reduce the risk of severe injury due to a fall, leading to healthier aging with less disability. Chiropractors provide valuable support to patients as they build bone density, combat sarcopenia, and maintain their independence through effective exercise plans and lifestyle modification.

Learn how modern chiropractic care can work for you

I’m here to help. My passion is movement and health, and right now our country needs more of this. I want to support my community by providing valuable education and care, and I’m open to suggestions on how I can improve.

Let me know if there is something you’d love to learn about or if aches and pains are something you’re struggling with. Shoot me an email or book an appointment online and we can get started.

When we work together, we can achieve any goal.

Cheers,

Dr. Josh

Highlands Wellness & Sports Injury Clinic