The Safety of Neck Manipulation

Media driven challenges surrounding chiropractic and stroke continue to challenge the profession. There is considerable misinformation and misunderstanding of the evidence. As a result, chiropractic physicians must be ready to answer questions when asked by patients. We hope the patient handout below will assist with that process.

As a reminder, the Illinois Chiropractic Society urges our doctors to exercise caution when a patient questions the correlation. Here are a few tips:

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1. Respect the concerns, especially if there is a specific story the patient references. However, provide the patient with the evidence. The ICS is making a stroke handout available through www.healthierillinois.com (our patient based website) for your in-office use. Here is a link.
2. Remember, clicking and sharing stroke stories via social media will potentially generate additional media attention as analytics demonstrate increased interest.
3. Resist the urge to write editorials, tweets, Facebook posts, blogs, etc., in response to media-driven attention. The ICS believes that chiropractic patients and the profession are better served when our messaging is unified and evidence-based.
4. Familiarize yourself with the evidence. The ICS developed an infographic for your reference – available here.

Patient Handout

Physician Reference Infographic

Access more information regarding the latest in published research in the Annals of Medicine from March 2019 here.