Chiropractors falling in love with “NASA” technology and promoting the scientific method’, should read this article by a real medical doctor Robert Kornfeld

Hi Rich!
Do you think it is a problem with chiropractors using “NASA-technology” if it is used as it should be? I had mine for years and I find it quite useful.

 Call
me old fashioned, but I have a problem with chiropractors using gadgets to hide
weaknesses. Technology becomes an easy solution, rather than spending
years practising to develop the skills necessary to become a skilled
adjuster. Does a chiropractor need good palpation skills anymore when he can
buy a machine to find subluxations for him. I have seen stuff advertised by
chiropractors just out of college claiming some unique technological “service”
(as used by NASA as if NASA knew anything about chiropractic), they get away
with these claims because there is so little consensus on what chiropractic is
and what they do.

I am
not against technology, I use X rays, I have a tread mill for gait analysis,
but I believe what makes me good at what I do, is wisdom I have acquired from practising the art of traditional chiropractic over many years. I could
open a practice from a bench in a park and people would come and get more or
less the same service.

 Chiropractic
sales men are developing tools for people who just dont have the psycho motor
skills to perform a competent adjustment with their hands. Tedd Koren had
not practised for years then one day “discovered” a
little electric vibrator that looks like a  drill,  tried
it on chiropractors who apparently reported ”This is the
best adjustment they ever had in their lives.”  According to Tedd his
technique “lives up to everything you hoped a chiropractic technique would do -
and more”

Now
if what Tedd and these sales people say is true, all chiropractors are missing,  is technology to get to the next level.  What amazes me
is how many chiropractors buy into this version of professional development.  

Anybody been watching the food hospital? I’m sure all the skeptics with their huge knowledge of the subject would have been screaming at the TV the other night ” your 26 with chron’s, get over it take steroids for the rest of your life the evidence shows thats the best treatment, altering your diet is a placebo, there is no evidence for it, can’t you even see that?!!!!”

Hi Richard,
I would not use it to find a subluxation and as far as I am aware it is not designed nor advertised as such from the manufacturer.  I use it to find objective change and improved function in the nervous system. However I agree, I could put a bench up in a park and my advices, results and services would pretty much be the same.As some chiropractors being called “sales men” anyone in whatever profession performing a service or having a product and when there is exchange with money you are a sales man.However some people lie about their product or service and take money for it and that is not in my eyes being a sales man, but a criminal. Criminals should be prosecuted.

People should use whatever they need to get best results, however if we are talking about surface temperature I am not sure if that is an objective evaluation of an adjustment or someone state of health and for me further complicates what it is we do. I am a KISS chiropractor even more so since I resigned from the register as I am not allowed to order x rays. 

The most successfully chiropractors I know do very little marketing. I definitely would not call them salesmen, like top athletes they are always striving to perfect their skills and exude confidence in what the do,  their satisfied clients go away and tell their friends. I am no salesman, I give my best and if the client does not want the service, its their loss, I wont call them and beg them to come in.  

The point you make about misrepresenting services is true and was highlighted in the recent complaints to the GCC. The question which should have been asked was, were chiropractors trying to deliberately mislead the public with their “claims” or were the trying to say their brand of chiropractic is better than they guy down the road. When I graduated I tried to get all the London chiropractors  to stop doing individual yellow pages listings and each to contribute £200 to a £40,000 radio campaign. It was like pulling teeth, chiropractors are incapable of working together because they think like salespeople and the competition are what should be their colleagues in a comunity

Have you actually met or heard Ted Koren speak? Have you met or heard Patrick or Chris speak?

I have tremendous respect for these chiropractors. What a shame. BJ constantly searched for technology to help advance chiropractic and prove it.

This post left me very sad I thought you were better than that…

Anon,When you say, “this post left me very sad I thought you were better than that…” 
It sounds like you know me or what you are talking about, so as you ask I will go into a bit more detail, something i have not done before. In 1997 Tedd Koren contacted me to be his European representative which I did for ten years. In the mid nineties Koren Publications UK was a business turning over £52,000. I organised many seminars for Tedd in the UK and Ireland after Dan Murphy he is the chiropractor I have learned most from. Tedd and his family have stayed in my house and my sisters in Ireland many times.Then one day Tedd showed up at a seminar in Oxford  and announced his discovery: “Koren Specific Technique” and had everyone at the seminar including the CAs trying it. This was a philosophy seminar not a technique seminar and I told Tedd, I thought this  was out of order. Tedd was frustrated that philosophy seminars were not getting the numbers  and felt Technique was the way to go. Tedds technique may well be everything he claims it is, however I had a problem being his representative  in Europe, his friend and I had difficulty grasping how someone who had not practised for thirty years was now going to teach chiropractors the holy grail of techniques. I explained to Tedd I did not want to have anything to do with the technique or marketing it in Europe, nevertheless people were asking me for my opinion on it and as Tedds friend I was reluctant to give it. Not for a moment did I think the technique would get a following, I was wrong, with the growing interest I did not feel I could act as his representative any longer. I told him this  and we worked together  to find some one to take it over, this turned out to be Michael Pim.  Perhaps Tedd was right, I am closed minded and not prepared to move away from the technique I had spend years practising to become very good at correcting subluxations, Its for others to make that assessment.Three years ago I drove all the Koren  stock over to Michael Pims,  I invoiced them for what I had paid for the stock approx £8,000, they offered me a third, taking out the least profitable part of the business, Tedds books as most people were now buying from Amazon. I was going to sue Pim for the money, but life is too short. Neither did I accept their offer as it would have legitimised what they were doing. (this is a very brief explanation and no doubt Tedd would explain it differently, however the stock which I paid Tedd for has presumably been sold, I never received a bean for it so Tedd has either been paid twice or Michael Pim has earned from stock he had not bought or paid to be shipped over. Business can be like that, it does not mean I have to like being screwed over though and I have not spoken to Tedd or Michael since. If Tedd or Michael says any of this is untrue I can publish our e-mails, I dont think they would want that.The fact is, thats business and first a foremost Tedd is a business man, thats what he has chosen to do for the last thiry years rather that practice chiropractic. As for BJ  and technology, the way he presented the “neurocalometer” was very divisive for the profession. It will be for the profession to say if Tedd and his technique can be put up there with BJ not you or I or Tedd.Let me repeat I dont assume to know anything about Koren Specific Technique.  It may very well do all the things Tedd claims, and I could put my feet up and let the CA’s correct the subluxations “safely” with the electric adjuster. I may have paid more attention if the technique had a Gonstead type story behind it or years of practical experience. All I know is Tedd wanted more numbers at his seminars and he saw possibilities in  technique seminars and his predictions were absolutely right.         

This and endless other examples, most of which designed to convince the patient of the efficacy and value of the adjustment. Personally I don’t think it’s unfair to say that if you need stuff to convince there are two other places to look at first: your personal convictions and your communication skills. The former is honed with discussion, debate and lots and lots of meeting clinicians. This requires some dedication, investment and forgiveness for those we inevitably occasionally will deem to be “idiots” (sometimes they only seemed that way to the inexperienced observer- the young mind is quick to judge), the latter,… I don’t know. Are we born with it? Is it the first 7 years that form it? Or is it a skill like any other which when we crawl out of our own backsides develops and blossoms over time. Not sure, either way it is real, unlike some of the forms, gizmos and mindless mantras we are regularly exposed to at seminars.
Stefaan 

The skeptics are tweeting their heads off.
“The English translation of the Swiss Health Technology Assessment (HTA) report on Homeopathy will be published in the UK on 30th November 2011. We are glad to bring you a taster of the contents of this exciting report.The 2006 HTA report on homeopathy was commissioned by the Federal Social Insurance Office (FSIO) within the context of an overall evaluation of Complementary and Alternative Medicines (CAMs). It was written by a team of German speaking academics and edited by G Bornhöft & F Matthiessen of Witten/Herdecke University in Germany.Interestingly, the HTA methodology, unlike meta-analyses and systematic reports such as the Cochrane Collaboration, does not just ask the question of effectiveness of a particular intervention, it also addresses the questions of effectiveness of a therapy in everyday use (i.e. real world effectiveness), how it is used, its safety and its cost-effectiveness.This report, amounting to 300-plus pages, exhaustively reviews the scientific literature in homeopathy. It summarises 22 reviews, 20 of which show positive results for homeopathy. Four of these showed strong evidence that homeopathy, as a system of medicine, is efficacious. It also finds strong supporting evidence for the homeopathic treatment of allergies and upper-respiratory tract infections.”

Andy lewis and Prof Ernsy have dismissed out of hand without even reading the full article, what a surprise. A piece of research that doesn’t prove their argument, and its rubbish???? Again it shows these people are not skeptics but bigots, blinkered know it alls, they don’t really care what the science says just the science they care to beleive in

And you are surprised?

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
This is worth a read.