Will chiropractic survive in the long run?

First, chiropractic does amazing things. Anyone in practice for any amount of time can confirm that.

Next, anyone in practice for any amount of time, even before practice, chiropractic students at the end of their academic careers know that chiropractic, no matter what technique of finding and correcting subluxations, is inconsistent and unpredictable in its effect.

That is the issue of why chiropractic has been shrinking.  Shrinking? More chiropractors now than ever…   One definition of “mathematics” is, putting numbers to things to see relationships that are otherwise not noticeable. Let’s look at some numbers.

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TLDR – Quick Guide

• Current Challenges: The chiropractic field faces scrutiny over the efficacy of various techniques and the need for standardized, evidence-based practices.
• Adaptation and Evolution: Embracing advanced methods like Advanced BioStructural Correction™ (ABC™) can enhance treatment outcomes and professional credibility.
• Future Outlook: The survival and growth of chiropractic care depend on continuous learning, integration of new techniques, and a commitment to patient-centered, effective treatments.

Will chiropractic survive in the long run?

If you view the website of the Australian Chiropractic College you see written that in Australia many of the 400 who graduate with their Chiropractic Degree each year do not stay in practice for any significant length of time.

According to the Australian Chiropractic Board, there were 5,383 registered practising chiropractors in March of 2000. In June of 2023, there were 5,924 registered practising chiropractors in Australia. 23 years, about 400 graduates a year = 9200 graduate chiropractors = just under 200% increase in degreed chiropractors. Yet an increase in the practising number of chiropractors of just 541 or 10%. That means that 8659 (94%) who graduated are not practising. And this, while the population increased from 19.01 million to 25.69 million (25%). So, there were 3533 people per chiropractor in 2000 and 4336 people per chiropractor now. That is a shrinkage of about 19%. If you say there were few graduates, say 300 you still do the math and work out to about 15% shrinkage.

In the United States and the rest of the world, it is worse. In 1980 there were noted to be 60,000 practicing chiropractors in the United States of America where Chiropractic was born. Today, despite an increase in the number of schools and class sizes, even the optimistic American Chiropractic Association counts only 70,000. That is a growth of about 15% in 43 years or, an increase of less than 1% a year, just ⅓%, yes, one-third of one percent per year.

This is true despite the fact that there are about 2,900 graduates each year from the 18 chiropractic degree programs in the US. 43 years, (43×2900=124,700). Reduce that by 25% and you still have well over 90,000 graduates and yet only 10,000 additional chiropractors in 43 years. About the same 10% as Australia but since 1980 (43 years) rather than since 2000 (20 years) so much less. Worse than stagnation because the population of the US in 1980 was about 227 million and is currently 340 million. That means the US population has grown by about 50% (half of 227 = 113.5, 227 + 113 = 340) and the chiropractic profession which was 1 per 3783 is now 1 per 4857. That is not stagnation. That is a shrinkage of about 25%.

There is a reason for the shrinkage of our profession. Chiropractic is not consistently and predictably effective.

The question that needs to be answered for Chiropractic to claim its place at the leading method of healthcare in the world is:

HOW DO WE MAKE CHIROPRACTIC CONSISTENTLY AND PREDICTABLY EFFECTIVE?

The question: HOW DO SUBLUXATIONS HAPPEN? Has not and will not lead to making Chiropractic consistently and predictably effects. And, methods to correct subluxations have not led to improvement in outcomes.

We have many methods or techniques to correct subluxations, but the subluxations often return and persist. Therefore, to make Chiropractic consistently and predictably effective we have to ask a different pair of questions:

WHY DO SUBLUXATIONS PERSIST?

And, not only why do subluxations persist? but:

WHY DO SO MANY CORRECTED SUBLUXATIONS QUICKLY RETURN (not hold) WHEN THEY DO?

The people who talk about Innate or that the body is constantly trying to self-correct are not wrong. The design of the body is the way it is because the body is always trying to self-correct. Cuts, bruises, breaks and just about everything else can be shown to be self-corrected by the body or it can be shown the body tries to self-correct. However, it is obvious that the body sometimes fails to self-correct.

The only answer that fits the questions above has been stated before.

That answer is that the subluxations are reset by the body because they are part of the compensation pattern the body creates to deal with imbalances to keep it upright and mobile.

However, many persist in thinking it is weak muscles or nerves or some such thing. That is highly unlikely since muscle stimulation of any type and nerve stimulation or replacement of any type have never created any consistently or predictably effective outcomes either.

The reason the so-called corrections do not hold is that they must be compensations and the body resets them (resets the compensation pattern) to maintain balance and as much motion as it can.

The next logical question is:

WHAT ARE THOSE RETURNING SUBLUXATIONS COMPENSATING FOR?

Many have said they are compensating for the Primary Subluxations. However, no one has stated a mechanical definition of a Primary Subluxation and many have mistaken the word “primary” to mean “first.”  This is a mistake.

In this context, the word “primary” means “most important” or first in importance. It does not mean first in the sequence of occurrence.

That leads to the next logical question:

WHAT IS THE MECHANICAL DEFINITION OF PRIMARY SUBLUXATIONS OR, THE SUBLUXATIONS THAT ARE MOST IMPORTANT?

The answer to that question was sought in the 1970s by several researchers. Dr. Charles Sawyer at Northwestern College of Chiropractic, then in St. Paul, MN noted that the research led nowhere. That research was based on sectional x-ray. Even to this day, chiropractors take x-rays or others take them and, after chiropractic treatment or other conservative treatments like braces and exercises, the A-P x-rays show an increase in left-right curves. A-to-P curves, except of the neck, are usually not described because there is little to no understanding of the changes and what they mean.

Further, Dr. Sawyer and others researched to discover the ideal chiropractic patient. The results were definitive, there was no ideal chiropractic patient. If you think a bit about it, it makes sense. Anyone with a body would likely need to have its structure corrected at some point in the life of the body. Therefore, there would be no one group that did not need structural correction at some point in their life. Therefore, the ideal chiropractic patient is anyone with a body. Too broad for marketers and others but the only sensible conclusion.

Why is chiropractic then not the premier healthcare system in the world? ➔  Not consistently and predictably effective.

Therefore, not finding an answer to those questions has led chiropractic away from its roots to bizarre neurological theories of subluxation that have not proven to make chiropractic any more consistent or predictable in its results. Further, those theories violate Occam’s Razor.

Occam’s Razor is the principle (attributed to William of Occam) that in explaining a thing, no more assumptions should be made than are necessary.

In other words, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. The various subluxation theories are so complex as to be incomprehensible.

Dr. Jesse Jutkowitz proposed the answer to that question in the late 1980s:

That answer turns out to be: SUBLUXATIONS THAT THE BODY CANNOT SELF-CORRECT.

Therefore, we have a mechanical definition of a PRIMARY SUBLUXATION. A bone out of place that the body cannot self-correct because the body has no muscle or combination of muscles that can pull that bone back to its position of optimal mechanical function.

The question, “WHAT IS THE MECHANICAL DEFINITION OF SUBLUXATIONS THE BODY CANNOT SELF-CORRECT?”   leads us back to our original chiropractic roots.

The original root of chiropractic from DD Palmer starting the Harvey Lillard example, is that bones go slightly out of place and adversely affect the health of the body. As we all know, that is how Chiropractic started and literally what the word “subluxation” means.

The definitive research on the effects of altered structure on the nervous system is from the 1960s-80s in the research of Dr. Alf Breig the Swedish neurosurgeon who summated his research in the book, Adverse Mechanical Tension in the Central Nervous System published in 1974. He confirmed the findings in clinical research over the next decade and summated that research in, Skull Traction and Cervical Cord Injury published in 1989. Breig noted it was the stretch of the nerves NOT pinching or pressure on the nerves that caused them to malfunction. Additionally, it is mainly flexion of the spine/body that causes the stretch of nerves.

These findings were confirmed in many cellular, molecular and structural research by neurosurgeon Shokei Yamada in the 1990s and summated in his paper Adult Tethered Cord Syndrome in 2000 and follow-on papers.

DD Palmer was mistaken in stating the issue was pinching or pressure on the nerves. The issue has been thoroughly demonstrated with physical and even cellular research to be STRETCH of the nerve cell membranes that stops the nerve from propagating a nerve impulse.

Therefore, step one is to admit that DD Palmer was close with his nerve pressure theory but not quite correct and change the issue of “nerve pressure” or “pinched nerve” to “nerve stretch”.

This, by the way, solves the long-standing conundrum of how the correction of a thoracic vertebra position allowed a return of the hearing of Harvey Lillard. The correction of the thoracic vertebra position reduced stretch on the cord and brain stem from which the auditory nerve originates, allowing the auditory nerve to again propagate a nerve impulse.

It also puts pressure on the medical and physical therapy professions because anything stretching nerves like traction or forced flexion is detrimental to recovery.

Breig’s research is noted in the Chiropractic BioPhysics Technique but misunderstood. The focus of Breig’s research was to reduce stretch. By physical experiment, this required reduced flexion of the spine. Breig did this by using a ribbon to hold the head and neck in extension. The ribbon is an external support and force on a spine stuck in flexion. CBP misunderstands this in thinking the cervical curve is the only thing affected by adjustments and tractions and that this extension of the cervical curve could be done without external support or consideration of what happens to the remainder of the spine. I will not go into a more detailed discussion of that here but one can notice that like the rest of manipulation (chiropractic or not), what CBP does has proven inconsistent, unpredictable and, if you survey their patients, harmful in plenty of cases just like other forms of manipulation and various methods of physical therapy.

Again, step one is to change the issue of “nerve pressure” to nerve stretch. And again, this solves the long-standing conundrum of how the correction of a thoracic vertebra position allowed a return of the hearing of Harvey Lillard.

As for body structure, what has been needed is an engineering approach to the analysis of the structural mechanics of the body.

The first thing is to note that Adverse Mechanical Tension in the Central Nervous System is an engineering text even more than a neurological text.

Breig notes that the skull, spine and pelvis are a single synchronized functioning unit. The spinal cord along with the covering meninges is not just a bundle of nerves. It is an elastic support going from the tailbone superior to the head and ties the entire spine together and tensioning the spine like a big segmented spring. This means that the spine is one unit that is spring-loaded and no one part of the spine can move or be moved without affecting every other part of the spinal column, skull pelvis AND, the spinal cord.  By actual experiment that includes the arms and legs.

The understanding of spinal mechanics has always been limited by a segmental approach because it does not account for the changes created in unobserved sections of the spine and affects of those changes both locally and distally in the spinal column-pelvis.

The definitive research on the mechanics of the spine as a single synchronized functioning unit was started by Breig. The next additional research on this was by Dr. Lowell Ward and the engineer Clint Fulkerson. It was privately published as Spinal Column Stressology in the book, The Dynamics of Spinal Stress. After the publication of that book, Dr. Ward discovered the tie-in of analyzing spinal mechanics in the standing weight-bearing position and the sitting weight-bearing positions noting the changes.

The key was discovered by Dr. Jesse Jutkowitz as the changes in the position of the pelvis, specifically the sacrum, which changes the direction of stretch on the cord and meninges. It was Dr. Jutkowitz who continued the analysis and put together the idea that the main issue was that bones out of place, subluxations, could be divided into only two meaningful categories:

• Bones out of place in a direction that the body can self-correct because it has muscles that can pull in the directions needed to pull those bones back to their correct positions. And,
• Bones out of place in a direction the body cannot self-correct because it has no muscles of combinations of muscles that can pull in the directions needed to reposition those bones.

The latter category is the answer to every problem with manipulation of the bones of the human body. It IS the long sought-after mechanical definition of a Primary Subluxation.

So, the chiropractor Dr. Jesse Jutkowitz made the discovery of the mechanical definition of what subluxations the body cannot self-correct:

Bones out of place in a direction the body has no muscle or combination of muscles that can pull in the direction needed to return that bone to its designed position (its position of optimal mechanical function)

It is so simple many will dismiss it but, it answers every question in chiropractic that has been hanging for over 100 years.

Before Dr. Jutkowitz started writing about it in the 1980s, no one had ever written that bones, in particular vertebrae, can go a bit out of place/subluxate in a direction the body has no muscle or combination of muscles that can pull in the direction needed to self-correct their positions once displaced.

The converse or opposite of “bones out of place that the body cannot self-correct” is, bones out of place that the body CAN self-correct but does not, even though the body does have muscles that can pull in the directions needed to reposition them.

By definition, the bones out of place that the body CAN self-correct but the body does not (there are muscles that can pull them back to their optimal mechanical position but they remain out of what is thought to be their optimal position) are all part of the compensation pattern the body creates to compensate for the imbalances created by the bones out of place that the body cannot self-correct. If they are moved the body resets them to the “out of place” position if they are moved to reset the compensation pattern.

Occam’s Razor at work. A simplicity that explains every difficulty with the past results of manipulations of the human body and with which Dr. Jutkowitz has created a system that consistently and predictably corrects body structure. And, does it fit with what we know?

For vertebral displacements the direction the body has no muscles that can pull in is posterior.   Look at the anatomy and remember your basic physics. There are no muscles that attach from a vertebra to something stable posterior to the vertebrae but there are muscles attaching to other bones and stable anchors in every other direction.

That means that any vertebra that displaces anteriorly even a bit cannot be pulled back into its proper position, or position of optimal mechanical leverage, by the body itself.

Those who think that extension will handle anterior displacements are not remembering that the vertebra below any vertebra that is subluxated anterior is unstable and also goes into extension when a body is extended by its own muscles or externally. If you have difficulty with this, take an x-ray. Look at George’s line. You will see anterior displacements but more importantly, you will see sudden anterior accelerations of the curves that indicate anterior displacements. Remember your training. The posterior aspect of the vertebral bodies are only affected by osteolytic processes like cancer and infections. Every other part of the vertebrae can be affected by pressures and other factors. Therefore, the only reliable indicator of vertebral A-to-P orientation are the angles of George’s line from vertebra to vertebra.

That anterior displacements cannot be self-corrected because it is the only direction the body has no muscles that can pull in turns out to be the basic piece of information that was missed by DD, BJ and everyone else. Even back to the manipulative techniques of the Chinese 5000 years ago and before that the Veda 10 to 12 thousand years ago.

Why do anterior adjustments not work consistently and predictably? It turns out that the mechanics of a vertebra displaced anterior are not two-dimensional. The three-dimensional nature of vertebral motion and the actions the body takes to compensate for the instability at the point of an anterior displacement make the mechanics of correcting anterior displacements a bit more complicated than just a simple look might indicate.

That means that correcting the position of the anterior vertebrae is more complicated than a simple horizontal push from A-to-P that is needed to correct the anterior displacements. There needs to be specific forces applied.  A horizontal A-to-P push will not make the corrections needed. On the other hand, correcting them turns out to be easier than anyone might imagine if the force is in the correct direction. Additionally, creating that force in the correct direction is actually easier than one might imagine.

Everyone knows that adjusting the spine and other parts of the body can work wonders. AND, everyone who is paying attention and willing to be honest and objective in their observations also knows that adjusting the spine sometimes just plain does not work and, if we are going to be honest with ourselves, sometimes adjustments are harmful.

Again, the converse or opposite of “bones out of place that the body cannot self-correct” is, bones out of place that the body CAN self-correct but does not, even though the body does have muscles that can pull in the directions needed to reposition them.

Why does the body not reposition them? Because the body needs those bones displaced to compensate for the imbalances caused by the bones out of place that the body cannot self-correct. Thus, treating the bones out of place that the body can self-correct but does not is removing compensations and creating conditions that worsen body function and health. This is true even if breaking up a compensation pattern relieves various symptoms. The body will be worse mechanically, certainly in the long run if not immediately.

Well, Dr. Jutkowitz’s discovery and its converse, which are bones out of place that the body cannot self-correct and bones out of place that the body CAN self-correct but does not, answer every question in chiropractic and every other type of manipulation. More importantly, that information leads to a method of correcting body structure that consistently and predictably gives even more than the excellent results other methods of chiropractic accomplish when they accomplish them.

Dr. Jutkowitz’s discovery also leads to an explanation of the negative results of various forms of manipulation when they occur and, very importantly, a means to avoid them.

Applying these data to the correction of body structure immediately leads to a more upright posture of human bodies with no muscular effort on the part of people and all the benefits noted with improved posture and much more.

The method is called Advanced BioStructural Correction™ (ABC). It is copyrighted and trademarked but the ACC has secured rights to teach ABC and will be doing so as part of its curriculum and post-graduate education throughout Australia.

It is not an exaggeration to say that chiropractors applying ABC as directed will find the consistency and predictability of their results to be well beyond anything available in any method of physical treatment of the human body in any discipline.

Further, widespread application of ABC will have consistently eliminated the need for surgeries and many other hospitalizations and ineffective treatments of breathing disorders and even heart function disorders as the chest shape immediately begins improving with the first treatment and on.

ABC does not claim to treat or cure cancer, infections, fractures, Diabetes and the like but it does correct many other ills of the body thought to be diseases that are actually affects and effects of misaligned structure and that chiropractic has been handling on an inconsistent and unpredictably basis since its inception.

Adopting this Advanced BioStructural Correction™ of the human body will not just save Chiropractic, it will catapult Chiropractic to be the premier healthcare system of the human body worldwide. It will greatly bluster the financial position of chiropractors and the chiropractic profession while reducing the financial position of the medical machine.

To survive and thrive as we should, we must implement Advanced BioStructural Correction™.

Key Takeaways

Advanced BioStructural Correction™ (ABC™): ABC™ is an advanced chiropractic method that focuses on correcting primary structural misalignments, leading to better posture and pain relief.

Diverse Techniques: The chiropractic profession includes various treatment methods, each with different levels of effectiveness. Chiropractors must adopt methods that consistently provide positive results.

Importance of Evidence-Based Practice: For long-term viability, chiropractors should prioritize scientifically backed treatments and move away from outdated or less effective approaches.

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