Chiropractic Therapy Versus Opiate Prescription
A greater acceptance of non-pharmacologic pain management therapies, which includes chiropractic approaches, has developed in the U.S. since the beginning of 2015 among health care organizations and programs. This is due to the work of a non-profit organization known as The Joint, which accredits and certifies hospitals and other institutions that provide pain care therapies in the U.S. This development goes as far back as 1998 when the federal government created an agency known as the NCCIH, or the National Center for Complimentary and Integrative Health, with the mission of researching into the merits and effective applications of what, during that time, was commonly known as “alternative medicine”.By 2013 institutions as well regarded as Mount Sinai Beth Israel had departments of Integrative Medicine that took subjects as esoteric as herbalism, Chinese medicine, and acupuncture into serious consideration.
A leader in acupuncture research from this department, one Arya Nielson Ph.D., is responsible for initiating a review of the pain management standard in health care organizations across the U.S.The review led to a revision of the accreditation standards of hospitals, care facilities, and senior homes in regards to non-drug pain management to include therapies like massage, acupuncture, and chiropractic care.This was made possible by the previous research of the NCCIH into therapies like yoga, meditation, qui gong, and tai chi, which did much to legitimatize non-pharmocalogic approaches to pain management in the eyes of U.S. medical practitioners.
By opening the set of options available in pain treatment, these new revised accreditation standards serve to reduce the dependency on opioid prescriptions, which are the cause of rampant abuse among patients and non-patients throughout the U.S. leading to severe addiction issues that are not only destructive all aspects of a well-balanced life but sometimes fatal.
Through the work of far-sighted professionals who saw the value in alternative approaches to pain management therapy decades ago, integrative practices are gaining strength not only in small clinics but also in major public hospitals and senior care facilities.
As mainstream acceptance grows in the health care world of pain management therapies like chiropractic care, and other non-drug therapies, debilitating and life-threatening pain killer addictions are predicted to be dramatically reduced in the future. The less doctors are forced to rely on prescribing habit forming drugs, the safer are their patients.
Thanks to the rigorous research into formally marginalized therapies by organizations such as the NCCIH and The Joint, the blind reliance on symptom masking drugs can be effectively supplemented and reduced by integrative care.
Used under Creative Commons Licensing courtesy of Ryan Weisgerber
