How does chiropractic care affect psychological well being?
Psychological well being. We see it consistently and constantly in our office. We don’t measure it with questionnaires, as our goals are often directed toward hard, clinical outcomes, but we recognize it.
Chiropractic researchers in the United Kingdom (Susannah Brockman, University of Surrey) studied a group of university students who have never had chiropractic care and followed them through a month of care to measure their psychological well being using a few different types of questionnaires.
They assessed the following mood states:
- tension-anxiety
- depression-dejection
- fatigue-inertia
- vigor-vitality
- “The degree to which situations in one’s life are appraised as stressful”
They found that the patients had a great improvement in their indexed questionnaires.
They proposed one of three possible mechanisms for chiropractic’s role in improving psychological well being.
- There is a non-specific effect on well being just from the doctor-patients encounter. Interacting with a professional, interviewing health history, the examination process, and the hands-on treatment may produce a positive psychological effect.
- Since chiropractic care (adjustments, etc.) is so effective with physical maladies, the regular act of a good clinical outcome can help relax the whole being and produce positive psychological effects.
- Chiropractic care has a direct action on the nervous system and an indirect action on the immune system. The field of psychoneuroimmunology studies this. Improving brain function with spinal signals, better posture, and better balance increases brain activity, and therefore better neurological control over the whole body.
These guys state: [if a reflex response to break muscle spasm] “…were so initiated, they may possibly serve to break a self perpetuating cycle whereby emotional factors (tension, stress, anxiety) are able to pathologically affect soft tissues, altering their normal biomechanical function with a subsequent impact on normal joint function. This leads then to pain and disability, which, in turn, serves to reinforce negative emotional states. Breaking this cycle through manipulation with the associated reduction in muscle spasm and hypertonicity should serve to improve emotional well being through improvement of physical health.”
They note that, “Vernon et. al. have demonstrated a transient increase in blood levels of B-endorphins following spinal manipulation. As these endogenous chemicals are linked to sensations of pleasure, an alternative explanation is that the active group improved owing to a rise in B-endorphins, which reduced fatigue, depression and tension.”
Because this was carried out in a structured research setting, the author stated that everyday chiropractic, with its multiple approaches to treatment should have a greater positive effect than was seen in this study. A normal chiropractic visit is much more than spinal manipulation; there are various interactions between the doctor-patient, staff-patient, and with multiple physical modalities.
Dr. Todd Lloyd.
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Source: Clinical Chiropractic
Volume 10, Issue 1 , March 2007, Pages 8-23