August 2004

Your chance to be part of the revolution

by Dr. Terry A. Rondberg

There's been a great deal of talk in the last few years about the "Wellness Revolution." We see it all around us, every day. In the grocery store, just about every product ‑‑ from corn flakes to soup mix ‑‑ touts some health benefit. Pilates DVDs are selling faster than box office blockbusters and people are going to alternative health providers far more often than they're going to MDs (425 million visits vs. 388 million visits, as of 1990, according to the New England Journal of Medicine).

Of course, wellness is a nebulous and often misunderstood concept. The Merriam‑Webster online dictionary says: "The quality or state of being in good health especially as an actively sought goal."

Arizona State University expands on that idea: "Wellness is an active, lifelong process of becoming aware of choices and making decisions toward a more balanced and fulfilling life. Wellness involves choices about our lives and our priorities that determine our lifestyles. The wellness concept at ASU is centered on connections and the idea that the mind, body, spirit and community are all interrelated and interdependent."

The National Wellness Institute says: "Wellness is an active process of becoming aware of and making choices toward a more successful existence."

Finally, the University of California, Berkeley, gives one of the best definitions when it states: "Wellness is much more than simply the absence of sickness. It is optimal physical, mental, and emotional well‑being, a preventive way of living that reduces ‑‑ sometimes even eliminates ‑‑ the need for remedies. Wellness emphasizes personal responsibility for making the life‑style choices and self‑care decisions that will improve the quality of your life. One crucial tenet is that preventing illness is even more important than treating it, especially since many chronic diseases are incurable. Wellness is a positive, day‑to‑day approach to a long, healthful, active life."

Most chiropractors ‑‑ although, unbelievably, not all ‑‑ would categorize subluxation correction as a key element in wellness, along with nutrition and diet, exercise, sleep, posture, stress management and lifestyle choices like the use of alcohol, tobacco, drugs, etc.

The Association of Chiropractic Colleges' Position Paper No. 1, signed and agreed upon by the presidents of all North American chiropractic colleges, and endorsed by most chiropractic organizations, says: "Chiropractic is concerned with the preservation and restoration of health, and focuses particular attention on the subluxation."

For most, this definition is also a mission statement, since it gives DCs a guiding purpose and principle to follow in their practices. While our first and foremost goal is to correct subluxations, the mission also includes other elements of wellness needed to ensure that patients receive maximum benefit from their adjustments.

While perfectly legal and ethical for chiropractors to focus solely on subluxation correction, it's also well within the chiropractic purpose for them to address related wellness issues that affect the spinal and general health of their patients.

Dr. Joseph M. Flesia, Jr., once wrote: "Wellness is a simple word and a complex process encompassing the most exciting and sought‑after physical and mental condition in society today. It is a condition in which the intelligence within the body expresses its genetic potential 100% without interference of any kind, preventing disease and producing a state of well being that makes life a healthy, exciting journey of discovery and contribution."

He added that chiropractors are ideally suited to providing wellness care to all patients.

"The human potential movement and its grandchild wellness fit hand and glove into chiropractic philosophy and the clinical expertise of chiropractors," he said. "Wellness patients have seen through the limitations of medicine. They are now reaching out to other non‑medical, natural, effective methods of improved health, such as chiropractic."

Dr. Christopher Kent also thinks that the joining of chiropractic and wellness is a match made in heaven.

"The chiropractic profession is perfectly positioned to lead the wellness revolution," he writes, "and to reap the benefits, material and spiritual, of accepting that challenge. ... By addressing vertebral subluxations, and the physical, biochemical, and emotional distress that cause such subluxations, a person seeking wellness care enhances their life experience. A wellness patient does not seek merely to maintain the status quo, return to pre‑injury status, or prevent illness. Such an individual recognizes that chiropractic care is a lifelong process ‑‑ a way of life ‑‑ that is an integral component of a global strategy for human empowerment."

In another article, Dr. Kent gives references to several scientific research studies and concludes: "Clearly, there is a growing body of evidence that wellness care provided by doctors of chiropractic may reduce health care costs, improve health behaviors, and improve patient perceived quality‑of‑life."

The idea that chiropractors may act as wellness health providers isn't new. In "The Chiropractor's Adjustor," D.D. Palmer stated: "The determining cause of disease is traumatism, poison, and auto‑suggestion ... Impingements, poisons, and intense thinking, auto‑suggestion, unrelieved change of thought, insufficient rest and sleep, increase or decrease the momentum of impulses."

Addressing the physical, biochemical and emotional distresses that cause subluxation are definitely, then, within the legitimate realm of doctors of chiropractic. Offering patients wellness care does not compromise chiropractic principles since it does not include medical or disease care.

Again, all DCs have the legal and ethical right to offer only specific adjustments to correct vertebral subluxations. But they also have the right to offer whatever additional wellness services are permitted by law, if they are qualified to do so. Those other services are NOT chiropractic, but are in addition to and complement chiropractic. They shouldn't be the focus of a practice and they definitely shouldn't be offered instead of chiropractic care.

If we are ever to earn chiropractic's rightful place in the health care arena, we have to be clear ‑‑ to ourselves and our patients ‑‑ what chiropractic is. But if we wish to be part of the Wellness Revolution, we need to stop thinking of chiropractic as a method of relieving symptoms or treating diseases or conditions. We need to savor our unique position as the only providers who can offer subluxation correction in addition to other wellness services.

The WCA logo states that the World Chiropractic Alliance has a "A Vision of Worldwide Wellness" ‑‑ if we don't take the leadership now while the profession is perfectly positioned to do so, some other profession will.

Personally, I think subluxation correction and proper nutrition can do more to enhance health and wellness than anything else. What a powerful combination! Imagine your patients leaving your office subluxation‑free and supplied with the information or products they need to ensure good nutrition. That could make an incredible difference in their lives.

A scientific evidence‑based wellness practice includes subluxation correction as well as proper nutrition.

It could also make an incredible difference to your practice, since a nutritional wellness profit center can create a significant revenue stream and attract numerous new patients ‑‑ without sacrificing chiropractic principles.

This concept is tremendously exciting and I've started a company called Chiropractors For Wellness to help DCs understand what the Wellness Revolution means to them and how we can to be the ones to lead it.

I'm also working on a book right now that goes into much more detail about the way chiropractors can become true wellness care professionals. I give very specific information on how to start a nutritional profit center without making a large investment and with minimum time and effort.

If you'd be interested in learning more, or receiving a copy of the book when it's available, contact me by e‑mail at tarondberg@chiropractorsforwellness.com or by phone at 800‑704‑4791 or 480‑303‑1778.

This is your chance to establish yourself as a wellness leader and to benefit from the $1 trillion wellness industry that may eventually defeat and supplant the old, failed medical and drug industry. This is your chance to be part of the Revolution.

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