Talk:Vertebral subluxation/Draft

Hi Matt, well done. I've done a first run copy edit, culled out some bits that seemed to me to be rather introspective argument, and tried to put in a couple of bits based in part on the comments in the Talk page on WP. I'll come back to this, but I've bust my specs so ...Gareth Leng 07:23, 12 January 2007 (CST)

No problem! You probably needed a break:) It is really neat to watch things transform and "mature" as you make your changes. Like always, you've kept the concept and said it better. I am curious about the science section (more as a student:), did I misinterpret it, or did you think it wasn't necessary? --Matt Innis (Talk) 07:35, 12 January 2007 (CST)

No, no misinterpretations. I guess I saw the general case as mainstream established science, not new or controversial, and I thought that presenting it there made it seem new or controversial, especially by picking a few primary studies rather than quoting reviews. I'll come back to this though, and think again.Gareth Leng 09:58, 12 January 2007 (CST)

Okay, as long as I didn't read it wrong. After listening to critiques for so long, I begin to doubt myself sometimes;) Just wanted to make sure I was interpreting the information the way it was presented. If you don't think it is necessary from an editorial POV, I'm okay with that. I could go on for hours, but surely don't want to bore the audience:) --Matt Innis (Talk) 12:18, 12 January 2007 (CST)

I added some in the intro as well. Feel free to work with it. --Matt Innis (Talk) 15:59, 12 January 2007 (CST)

Matt, here's the problem I have with this article, its the same problem I have with vertebral subluxations- I can't grasp it because it always seems to be presented with circular reasoning. Here's what I mean: as far as I can tell a vertebral subluxation is something that must exist because fixing it cures a problem. But- there does not seem to be anything concrete presented about how to objectively tell a vertebral subluxation is there, The "scientific proof" does not address identifying a vertebral subluxation, in other words- granted that a misalignment of a vertebral joint can lead to arthritis, but vertebral subluxations are treated by chiropractors all the time when there is no measureable misalignment of the joint. I'm not saying that your working on the back is not effective, I'm saying that the theoretical basis may be imaginary. I was bringing this up in the Chiropracter article, believe me in medicine many physicians avoid having their examining skills tested, but some don't. In those who don't, if there is a diagnosis that is made on clinical examination the exams of many physicians can be compared. This is a lot of work, but not expensive and so, I don't buy that chiropracters don't have the support of major grant makers and that explains the lack of these kinds of studies. Maybe they do exist and you and I are not aware of them. Bottom line- what's the evidence that one chiropractor finds the same problems in a back that the next one does? It doesn't make sense to me that we say vertebral subluxations exist because of history and Palmer. Nancy Sculerati MD 18:45, 12 January 2007 (CST)

Okay, so what you are saying is that you would like to see some sort of solid information on how a subluxation is found and maybe some proof that there is some degree of certainty that several blinded doctors would find the same thing. I think there were some tests done in the 80's on this very thing. I'll see what I can find. --Matt Innis (Talk) 23:28, 12 January 2007 (CST)

Dumping ground as I find some. Feel free to view and let me know if you see something you like in particular.

• Manual Examination of the Spine: A Systematic Critical Literature Review of Reproducibility
• Intraexaminer Reliability of Identifying a Dysfunctional Segment in the Thoracic and Lumbar Spine
• Pubmed reliability articles

I'm going to have to stop there for now until I have a chance to go through some of them.

--Matt Innis (Talk) 00:54, 13 January 2007 (CST)

Are physicians leery of the claims made by chiropractors? What about Osteopathic Docs and Physical Therapists? I know that in terms of osteopathic manipulation, I trust the DOs coming out of the number 4 school in the nation for primary care - MSU COM, and one really good physical therapist who works in Okemos, MI. However, I definitely benefit from having T3-T5 joints "loosened up" about once a week - but I can do this sitting in a chair and pushing inferiorly and stretching my spine that way - pop, pop, pop. I'm interesting in reading more, even though I'm biased. I'm also really interesting to read some of the really new and interesting physical therapy research that is starting to get published. -Tom Kelly (Talk) 20:16, 12 January 2007 (CST)

Hey Tom! Yes, I think it is safe to say that we are all leery of each other;) I don't blame you for being biased, DCs don't have the best reputation - mostly because we have some that keep shooting us in the foot:) Feel free to add whatever you like, and certainly at least check my spelling! I'm thinking "subluxation" in the upper thoracic region;)lol. --Matt Innis (Talk) 23:28, 12 January 2007 (CST)

I'd be wary of having this article become a representation over the debate about whether subluxations are real or not because its clear that as the term is used with such different intents even within chiropractic it is going to get confusing and will go nowhere. Nancy's difficulty seems to me to be that she's understood it exactly, yes, for some chiropractors, subluxation is simply whatever explains why chiropractic works - i.e. for them its an empirically evolved treatment with a rationale (subluxation) that seems to them to be a useful explanation of why it works, not least because patients can understand and be reassured by this. So I think the article should describe how the term is used 9in its various ways paerhaps) rather than try to make a consistent "scientific" definition of something that is not always used as such..???? Matt?????...Gareth Leng 05:53, 13 January 2007 (CST)

Good point. I think your consolidation on the science section does sum up the science pretty well, which is probably close to all we should try to do, because otherwise we open the door to a boatload of back and forth science that only adds volume but not content. Hopefully those that are interested can read the references - and we can add some there as we find them. We will end up with the same "feeling" that you have summarized already: that the "proof" is lacking - which doesn't bother most chiropractors because if they are science oriented, they are using subluxation in the somatic sense anyway and only use the visceral sense as a "lets watch and see" attitude. If they are "subluxation" based then they probably feel like BJ and think that if it is ever proven, medicine will steal it. Keep in mind that physical therapeutics was pioneered by chiropractors and a lot of the "really new and exciting stuff" has been around for awhile in chiropractors offices. A lot of what is now conventional thought has it's roots in chiropractic. Just as DOs have been drawn toward allopathy, PT has inevitably been drawn toward chiropractic. The fear was that if they prove it, scientific medicine will steal it and call it their own and chiropractors will have nothing to practice - after all they could not practice in hospitals or use any of the equipment until after 1991 - that was only 15 years ago. Along that same line, I think Nancy's POV is one that a lot of people have about chiropractic (including some chiropractors) that we need to handle - at least the subluxation part on this page. In the early 80's, chiropractors made an attempt to clarify what a subluxation was and went from subluxation to vertebral subluxation complex. I can at least put some of that in and then we can see if it makes more sense. I am glad for the discourse because this is where I get bogged down trying to decide what needs to go into the 32Kb article;) I need both your POVs. Thanks. --Matt Innis (Talk) 08:54, 13 January 2007 (CST)

Hi Matt, I looked at the JVSR site and saw that they dad some thumbnails of covers from Historic Print Editions _ wondered if one of these might be appropriate? On the science side, think it's important to stay quite light. There is no doubt that the spinal nerves do a lot more than just control muscles, so the idea that nerve dysfunction might have wide consequences is certainly credible, but on the other hand giving this too much weight may tend to make it appear that the subluxation theories are accepted, and that,s also not true - my reading is that they are credible explanations for things that we don't understand, but they might be wrong - we just don't know enough to be sure. As a wholly personal and unexpert bias I'd say that I think its very likely that spinal dysfunction in some cases does cause some of the "unexplained" symptoms in peripheral organs, but whether this is common or uncommon I'm not remotely qualified to judge. So I feel the right path is to acknowledge the credibility of the explanations without seeking to imply that they are necessarily true explanationsGareth Leng 10:25, 13 January 2007 (CST)