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HEALTHBEAT SHOW NOTES .... Episode #100 - Recorded June 8, 2007

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of HealthBeat, Chiropractic OnLine Today’s Health, News and informational Podcast.

In this week’s news:  We’ll Look At –  

• ANJC pursues multi-prong attack on the anti-Extremity Adjusting Court Decision

• Measuring Outcomes in Back Care

• Chronic Fatigue Illnesses

• Prostate Cancer Treatment Guidelines Updated

• And Finally, Chiropractic Corner presents the first part of our Interview with Dr. Louis Sportelli

For HealthBeat, This is Dr. Todd Eglow.

Welcome to HealthBeat Podcast #100, recorded June 8, 2007.  HealthBeat is Chiropractic OnLine Today’s radio program, providing current news and commentary about Chiropractic and Health. Plus, it’s My Birthday!!!!

This week’s Episode is sponsored by DaVinci Laboratories.  Please surf to our web site at www.ChiropracticRadio.com and click on the DaVinci link for your Health and Nutritional needs.

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And Now for some news ….

ANJC pursues multi-prong attack on court decision

New Jersey chiropractors are fighting for the right to provide extra-spinal adjustments. As reported in earlier COT HealthBeat episodes, in April of this year, a panel of appellate judges in New Jersey ruled that state law limits chiropractic adjustment to the spinal column and does not include adjustment of other joints.

The Association of New Jersey Chiropractors (ANJC) is pursuing a multi-pronged attack on the court’s decision. As reported in Chiropractic Economics, the ANJC has taken steps to restore the scope of practice to New Jersey chiropractors.  These steps include:

• Appeared before the Board of Chiropractic Examiners to request that the Board join in the appeal of the case to the Supreme Court. The Board unanimously voted to have the Deputy Attorney General assigned to the Board to review the transcripts and briefs with the possibility of filing an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief.

• Has obtained the ACA Board of Director’s approval for the ACA to appear as friend of the court in the appeal to the Supreme Court. 

• Requested assistance from the Department of Consumer Affairs.

• Has collected more than 30,000 signatures on patient petitions to submit to the Supreme Court on the appeal.

In addition, the legal department has filed a petition to the Supreme Court to review the case. It has also filed a separate motion arguing that the court must review the decision, due to constitutional concerns of vagueness of the chiropractic regulatory scheme, as well as another motion to supplement the record before the Supreme Court to include multiple minutes of the Board of Chiropractic Examiners, which state the Board’s position that extraspinal manipulation is within the scope of practice.

The ANJC has also been in contact with other patient-centric groups such as labor unions and the teachers union to request that they, as well, join as friend of the court in the appeal.

For more information, surf to the ANJC at www.anjc.info

http://www.chiroeco.com/news/2007/May/ANJC.php

Measuring Outcomes in Back Care

A study in a special supplement to the May 15, 2007 issue of the journal Spine describes current issues of outcomes assessment in spine research, with a focus on their application to advocacy oriented research.

Outcomes measurement in back pain has advanced substantially over the past decade.  Researchers and clinicians now have multiple instruments that can assess patient outcomes with adequate psychometric properties.

The domains generally assessed include:

• biologic measures (range of motion, fusion rate);

• patient-reported outcomes (functional status, quality of life);

• process measures (hospital days, medication use); and

• outcomes of interest to society (days off work, health care costs).

When research is conducted in the context of advocacy work, care is needed to avoid introduction of bias into the work. Bias in outcomes assessment can occur through multiple phases of the research process, including selection of the research question, study design, measurement, choice of the outcome measures used, and analysis. Bias can also occur in assessing outcomes across studies in literature synthesis.

Surf to our Show Notes for a link to this study - http://www.spinejournal.com/pt/re/spine/abstract.00007632-200705151-00003.htm;jsessionid=GQxGLHk1ytlvdhTTRtkpLm4pcQXT8QgrQ9Hp8VYpCTRgmVLRm9jw!1888299356!-949856144!8091!-1

Chronic Fatigue Illnesses

A study in the April 25, 2007 issue of BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine described the effects of Chronic fatiguing illnesses, including chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), pose a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge.

Previous clinical reports addressed the utilization of health care provided to patients with CFS by a variety of practitioners with other than allopathic training, but did not examine the spectrum of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies used. This study was designed to measure CAM therapy use by persons with fatiguing illnesses in the United States population.

Utilization of CAM was common in fatiguing illnesses, and was largely accounted for by the presence of underlying conditions and poor physical and mental health. Compared to non-fatigued persons, those with chronic fatigue syndrome-like illness or chronic fatigue were most likely to use body-based and mind-body therapies. These observations have important implications for provider education programs and development of intervention strategies for chronic fatigue syndrome.

Surf to our Show Notes for a link to this study - http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/7/12/abstract

Prostate Cancer Treatment Guidelines Updated

New guidelines for the treatment of localized prostate cancer emphasize honest communication with the patient regarding his risk, treatment options, and potential outcomes, experts stressed at their American Urological Association (AUA) 2007 Annual Meeting.

The focus on risk stratification is one of the most important ways in which these guidelines differ from the first ones released.  Categorization by risk helps determine the patient's risk of cancer recurrence and how effective treatment will be.

Much has changed in the 12 years since the initial guidelines were developed. More than 28,000 scientific articles have been published in peer-reviewed medical journals between October 1995 and October 2005.

Thanks to this research and to the advent of widespread prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening in the late 1980s, prostate cancer mortality dropped from 34,475 in 1995 to an estimated 30,350 in 2005. Clinicians are more likely today to diagnose the disease in its early stages and to offer patients a wider range of therapies than in years past or to not offer therapy at all if that is what the patient chooses.

Today's patients are better informed and more likely to participate in their treatment decisions than in earlier times. Mortality, however, from prostate cancer, while lower than it was a decade ago, is still high, and will probably remain high as the population ages. The panel tried to take all of this into account when they formulated the new guidelines.

Surf to our Show Notes for a link to these updated Guidelines - http://www.auanet.org/guidelines/main_reports/proscan07/content.pdf

Chiropractic Corner – In this edition of COT HealthBeat’s Chiropractic Corner, we present the first part of our Interview with Dr. Louis Sportelli.

Dr. Sportelli has served in many capacities throughout his 41 year career in chiropractic.  He has served as Chairman of the Board of the ACA, as well as president of the World Federation of Chiropractic, which represents 80 chiropractic organizations around the world.

In addition, Dr. Sportelli currently serves as president and CEO of the NCMIC Group in Des Moines, IA. One of the subsidiaries of this Group, NCMIC Insurance Company, is the largest chiropractic malpractice insurance company in the nation insuring more than 36,500 doctors of chiropractic in the USA.

As always, please surf to our Podcast Show Notes at ChiropractiRadio.com for a full listing of web references mentioned in today’s show.

And remember - COT’s Healthbeat always recommends discussing any nutritional or exercise lifestyle modifications with a qualified healthcare professional.

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Finally, I leave you with the following quote:

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
– Sir Winston Churchill

For Chiropractic OnLine Today’s HealthBeat, This is Dr. Todd Eglow.

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