Many people depend on their chiropractors to ease chronic neck and back pain. However, cervical manipulation or neck adjustment techniques employed by chiropractors can be unreasonably dangerous. A neck adjustment by a chiropractor can cause a dissection of the vertebral or the carotid artery, resulting in a stroke. Sometimes, the first signs of stroke will occur before leaving the practitioner’s office.

However, a stroke is more likely to occur well after the chiropractic neck adjustment, perhaps days or weeks after the chiropractor has manipulated the patient's neck.

Here is some helpful information from the American Chiropractic Association (www.acatoday.org):

What is Chiropractic?
Chiropractic is a health care profession that focuses on disorders of the musculoskeletal system and the nervous system, and the effects of these disorders on general health. Chiropractic care is used most often to treat neuromusculoskeletal complaints, including but not limited to back pain, neck pain, pain in the joints of the arms or legs, and headaches.
Doctors of Chiropractic - often referred to as chiropractors or chiropractic physicians - practice a drug-free, hands-on approach to health care that includes patient examination, diagnosis and treatment. Chiropractors have broad diagnostic skills and are also trained to recommend therapeutic and rehabilitative exercises, as well as to provide nutritional, dietary and lifestyle counseling. The most common therapeutic procedure performed by doctors of chiropractic is known as "spinal manipulation," also called "chiropractic adjustment." The purpose of manipulation is to restore joint mobility by manually applying a controlled force into joints that have become hypomobile - or restricted in their movement - as a result of a tissue injury.

Is There Risk of Stroke from Neck Manipulation?
Neck manipulation is a remarkably safe procedure. Although some reports have associated upper high velocity neck manipulation with a certain kind of stroke, or vertebral artery dissection, there is not yet a clear understanding of the connection. While we don't know the actual incidence of stroke associated with high velocity upper neck manipulation, the occurrence does appear to be rare, based upon the clinical reports and scientific studies to date. The chiropractic profession is actively researching stroke and neck manipulation and available safe alternative conservative therapies.

It has also been suggested, for example, that sudden severe upper-neck pain and/or headache, which may indicate a pre-stroke condition, could cause someone to visit a doctor of chiropractic. In addition, some regular everyday activities, such as stargazing, rapidly turning the head while driving, and even having a shampoo in a hair salon may cause aneurysm-a widening of an artery resulting from the weakening of the artery walls- of the neck arteries, resulting in stroke. These events remain very difficult to predict.

If you are visiting your doctor of chiropractic with upper-neck pain or headache, be very specific about your symptoms, so that he or she can provide the safest and most effective treatment, even if it involves referral to another health care provider. There are various head and neck positions and forms of joint movement. Depending on your clinical condition, joint mobilization, therapeutic exercise, soft-tissue techniques, and other therapies can also be recommended. If the issue of stroke concerns you, do not hesitate to discuss it with your doctor of chiropractic.


Below is an article from InjuryBoard.com about Chiropractic Malpractice:

Chiropractic Malpractice
Posted by Ken Margolin

Chiropractors can seem to work miracles at times for patients with ailing backs. Some people swear by them and I don't doubt their ability to help in appropriate cases. There have been, however, some cases of horrific chiropractic malpractice, resulting in severe injury, even paralysis or death.

While chiropractors are trained in the mechanics of the body, they are not medical doctors. As is the case with perhaps too many practitioners of various alternative medical techniques, some chiropractors may overestimate the types of conditions their technique can cure. A major category of chiropractic negligence is failure to recognize the need to refer the patient to a medical doctor. There have been cases reported, for instance, of a chiropractor treating a patient for an extended period of time for symptoms that turned out to have been caused by a malignant tumor, curable early on and fatally metastasized by the time the patient went to a physician. Chiropractors must be alert for alarming symptoms and be ready to refer a patient to a medical doctor in a timely manner if symptoms do not improve or worsen.

A second obvious category of chiropractic malpractice are cases in which manipulation has caused serious nerve damage. As in the case of the need to know when to refer patients to physicians, awareness of the patient's condition is the best prevention of chiropractic injuries from manipulation. Patients who are elderly or suffering from degenerative or other serious diseases, may be more fragile and susceptible to serious injury from powerful manipulations of their cervical or spinal regions. It is a fundamental obligation of every chiropractor to know when to manipulate gently or to avoid chiropractic treatment altogether.

 

 

 

Edward M. Bernstein is the owner of Edward M. Bernstein & Associates, a law firm with offices in Las Vegas and Green Valley, Henderson. He has served as a Judge Pro Tem for the City of Las Vegas Municipal Court and for the City of North Las Vegas. He was the Democratic candidate for the United States Senate in 2000. He has been appointed by the Governor to serve as a hearing officer for the State of Nevada Personnel Advisory Commission as well as a hearing officer for the State of Nevada Department of Administration and the Nevada Board of Psychological Examiners. Las Vegas personal injury lawyer Ed Bernstein is one of the most experienced Las Vegas personal injury lawyer representing Las Vegas victims who need a Las Vegas personal injury lawyer or a Las Vegas car accident lawyer. If you've been hurt, you want a car crash attorney who understands the type of injuries that result from serious car wrecks. That's exactly what you'll get the from the law firm of Ed Bernstein & Associates. There are hundreds of accidents in Las Vegas annually and a car accident attorney in our Las Vegas injury law firm can help you recover damages and get compensated for injuries of all types. Our Las Vegas wrongful death lawyers handle injury lawsuits pertaining to medical malpractice cases. If you've been hurt by recalled drugs, a pharmacy error, dangerous antidepressants, or risky asthma drugs, where can you turn for help? You may have trusted a drug to help you feel better but now your health is worse. If you had a bad drug reaction, there's a good chance it may have happened to someone else too. Because there are time limits on filing a claim on a dangerous drug, don't wait any longer to find out about your legal rights. This website offers information about car accidents, bike accidents, taxi accidents, boat accidents, pedestrian accidents, motorcycle accidents, work injuries, workers compensation, hurt-on-the-job injures, dog bites, animal attacks, slip and fall accidents, casino accidents, medical malpractice, social security disability, people denied social security benefits, food poisoning, nursing home abuse, dental malpractice, chiropractor malpractice, nursing malpractice, healthcare malpractice, insurance disputes, defective products, harmful side effects from drugs like Ortho Evra, Seroquel, Zyprex, Fosamax, Digitek, Levaquin, or Yasmin / Yaz.