Claudia Anrig – Pediatric Chiropractic (2nd edition)

Описание

Foreword

When invited to write a foreword for this ground-breaking text on chiropractic care for children, I
accepted with both gladness and trepidation—gladness because I firmly believe that such a serious
compilation of work, meant primarily for students, teachers, and clinicians of chiropractic, advances the
theory and practice of a field that fundamentally promotes health for children and trepidation because I am
a pediatrician, who has been indoctrinated to totally reject chiropractics and chiropractors and who
overcame prejudice and fear only two decades ago through my own direct experience. Overcoming
prejudice and fear was not easy; I was prodded by extreme pain. I came into chiropractic care as most
Americans do, by word of mouth. I came in pain and with a bad prognosis from my medical colleagues. I
recovered pain-free function and complete well-being over a short period of several months. Since then,
throughout my career I have supported chiropractic care as an adjunct to medical care for adults and for
children whenever I believed that it was indicated.
As in allopathic medicine, chiropractic care ranges from excellent to poor. And, as in allopathic
medicine, we can only approach excellence by continuing study, practice, and research. Throughout my
years in clinical pediatrics, I have been fortunate to associate with excellent clinicians among the
chiropractors who treated my friends, my referred patients, and me. I have known chiropractors who
diagnosed medical conditions that had been missed by allopathic colleagues and who did not hesitate to
refer patients to appropriate medical or surgical treatment.
The vehement opposition of medical physicians, individually and in their organizations, to
chiropractic, has for too long kept chiropractors working in isolation and marginated from access to
research support and opportunities. The chiropractors’ antitrust suit against the AMA that was definitively
won in 1990 cleared the ground for a new foundation of collaboration. That, and the wide public demand
for chiropractic health services acted on by at least 10% of Americans, brought the field into broad
acceptance. Since 1974 Medicare has been required to pay for chiropractic services and currently about
85% of insurance companies provide some sort of coverage.
Research support for chiropractic has lagged far behind public acceptance. As an example, the
National Institutes of Health first allocated two million dollars in 1974 for the scientific study of the
biomechanics of the chiropractic adjustment. It was a definite step forward, but compare it to the billions
spent on pharmacological research over a few years. The establishment of a chiropractic research center
funded by the Office of Alternative Medicine is a further step in the right direction. There is fertile ground
for research on the effects of chiropractic adjustments on physiological, biochemical, immunologic,
hormonal, and other body responses. There is fertile ground for research into the role of chiropractic care
in promoting and enhancing healing and health.
Chiropractic care for infants and children is now coming of age. The publication of this text climaxes
the achievement of a body of knowledge and of a budding collaboration of pediatric chiropractors with
allopathic pediatricians. There are tantalizing collaborative research results already, some in common
conditions such as infantile colic and middle ear infections that have baffled pediatricians for decades.
From such collaboration, without bias and in a true spirit of support for optimal health for children, we
may achieve the knowledge base for the holistic pediatrics of the future.