Research Highlights: Changing Views of Chiropractic ... and a National Reappraisal of Nontraditional Health Care

摘要

For half a century, the American Medical Association waged war against chiropractic, an intervention that relies on spinal adjustments to treat health problems. Chiropractors were regarded as the modern-day equivalent of snake-oil salesmen. Today, chiropractors are the third largest group of health care providers, after physicians and dentists, who treat patients directly. AMA policy now states that it is ethical for physicians not only to associate professionally with chiropractors but also to refer patients to them for diagnostic or therapeutic services. 'In the last decade of the 20th century, chiropractic has begun to shed its status as a marginal or deviant approach to care and is becoming more mainstream,' said Paul Shekelle, M.D. and director of RAND's Southern California Evidence-Based Practice Center. He played a key role in RAND's land-mark investigations of chiropractic that stimulated a national reappraisal of this and other nontraditional health care approaches.