Best Practices Recommendations for Chiropractic Care for Older Adults: Results of a Consensus Process

Consensus Process to Develop a Best-Practice Document on the Role of Chiropractic Care in Health Promotion, Disease Prevention, and Wellness

“…75,76 An approach used by consensus panels is to develop bestpractice recommendations. 59,60,77 Best practices have been described as "…not a specific practice per se but rather a level of agreement about research-based knowledge and an integrative process of embedding this knowledge into the organization and delivery of health care." 75…”

“…57,58 Best-practice guidelines for chiropractic care for both children and older adults recommend that DCs provide all patients with disease prevention and health promotion counseling as recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). 59,60 However, it is not clear how many are implementing this recommendation in daily practice. To evaluate and implement wellness practice, a commonly agreed-upon set of terms and procedures are needed.…”

Spinal Manipulative Therapy for Elderly Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Case Series

“…These findings should be taken into consideration with evidence-informed best practices for chiropractic evaluation, management, and manual treatment for older adult patients. 37 Limitations Although encouraging, the results of this study should be considered in light of the limitations such as the small sample size and the lack of a control group. The authors recognize that, to make strong statements concerning the safety of SMT in the frail and elderly, studies would need to be performed on a larger sample size and include a comparison (control) group.…”

Chiropractic spinal manipulative therapy for a geriatric patient with low back pain and comorbidities of cancer, compression fractures, and osteoporosis

“…In conducting a formal Delphi process to determine best practices for chiropractic care in older adults, it was concluded that high-force manual techniques may be contraindicated for osteoporosis depending on the severity; but other chiropractic techniques were not ruled out. 14 Practicebased studies on chiropractic and geriatrics summarize some key points including that most geriatric patients receiving chiropractic care are also receiving health promotion and prevention recommendations from their doctor of chiropractic, and patients who received chiropractic care in addition to traditional medical services had fewer hospitalizations and used fewer medications than patients receiving medical care only. 3 A study conducted by Johnson 15 discussed treatment of an elderly patient with a similar history to the patient presented in this case study.…”