Report from the FCER
DES MOINES, Iowa-In 1996, the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) was scheduled to produce a set of clinical practice guidelines on available treatment alternatives for headache in much the same way the agency had previously done with its historic clinical guidelines, Acute Low Back Problems in Adults, released late in December 1994.
This headache project was based on the systematic evaluation of the literature by a multidisciplinary panel of experts. Due to largely political circumstances, however, their efforts never came to fruition. The work was never released as guidelines, but was instead transformed with modifications and budget cuts into a set of evidence reports on only migraine headache by the staff at the Center for Clinical Health Policy Research at Duke University.
The Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research (FCER) is proud to announce that with its efforts and funding from the National Chiropractic Mutual Insurance Company (NCMIC), evidence reports have now been updated on both cervicogenic and tension-type headaches. This new report, Evidence Report: Behavioral and Physical Treatments for Tension-type and Cervicogenic Headache, is now available to you exclusively from FCER. It essentially updates and releases much of the information on treatment alternatives for tension and cervicogenic headache that had been suppressed earlier. For documenting both the quality and strength of research findings pertaining to chiropractic and headache, this report represents an invaluable addition to both your library and clinical practice. It does so from the point of view of an impartial government agency-the objectivity and credibility of which would be expected to have the greatest public impact.
Among the many treatment alternatives supported by evidence, chiropractic is buoyed by substantial evidence in this report as to its efficacy in the management of both tension-type and cervicogenic headaches:
This new undertaking mandated the staff at the Duke Center to screen citations from the literature, abstract the data into evidence tables, analyze the quality and magnitude of results from these studies, and draft an evidence report with peer review from a panel of 25 reviewers, including researchers and clinicians in chiropractic.
Starting with over 2,500 citations from such sources as MEDLINE, MANTIS, CRAC, CINAHL, PsychoINFO, the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, and additional articles obtained by referral, the panel obtained bibliographies of both physical and behavioral options for treating headache that were prospective, controlled trials aimed at either relief from or prevention of attacks of tension-type or cervicogenic headache. Among the physical interventions reviewed in this report:
Evidence Report: Behavioral and Physical Treatments for Tension-type and Cervicogenic Headache is available exclusively from FCER. To order your copy, please call 800-622-6309. Evidence Report is available for $39 for non-FCER members, $35 for current members (plus shipping and handling). The Executive Summary of this report is available www.fcer.org.
Note: Since 1944, the Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research has endeavored to fund and support scientifically sound research to evaluate chiropractic health care. To protect the integrity of the research that it funds, FCER maintains a 501 c (3) status as an independent research foundation.
Many relevant diagnostic signs are not performed deliberately by the examiner or by the patient at the examiner’s direction. They are observed as the patient reacts to their condition. Fortin’s finger sign, Minor’s sign, and Vanzetti’s sign are three examples of this principle.
Spearheaded by burgeoning scientific and clinical research literature, psychedelics have reached a level of media coverage and popular interest that has not been seen for over half a century. By “psychedelics,” we are referring to the unique class of substances that includes psilocybin (the active compound found in so-called “magic mushrooms”), LSD, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ayahuasca, 5-MeO-DMT, and mescaline – each of which occurs in the natural world (except for LSD, which is a semi-synthetic compound).
While working at the Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M., one of the primary care physicians stated that imaging every patient prior to receiving chiropractic was not medically necessary. It was at that point I reconsidered the need for the imaging of every patient to avoid malpractice.
