Seniors

The above is the title of a study published on February 21, 2012 in the journal, “Chiropractic & Manual Therapies”. The article reviews information and statistics about the usage and role of chiropractic care for the aging population.

The review starts off by noting that the demographics of the population in the US is aging. By the year 2030 it is expected that one in every five Americans will be age 65 or older. The authors of the study also report that 14% of patients who go to chiropractors are age 65 or more. These seniors mainly go to chiropractors for complaints of musculoskeletal aches and pains with back pain being the most common ailment that brings these seniors to a chiropractor.

The authors report that based on previous studies, 14.6% of seniors have gone to a chiropractor between the years of 1993 and 2007. On an annual basis, they report that between 4.1% 5.4% of seniors seek chiropractic services each year.

The study notes that chiropractors offer a variety of services to seniors with chiropractic adjustments, called SMT (spinal manipulative therapy) by the authors, being the most common service, and nutritional advice and exercise recommendations being common.

The authors report that chiropractic adjustments vary and there are many different techniques used by chiropractors in their offices. They also note that most techniques used for seniors have been modified for the age of the patients and their specific spinal conditions.

The authors also noted that other studies showed chiropractic helping elderly people with a range of other health issues including: COPD, constipation, depression (associated with back pain), Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, pneumonia, spinal stenosis, urinary incontinence, and osteoarthritic pain and dysfunction.

The study also reported that chiropractic care was safer than expected for older adults with two studies showing a small number of adverse events and none of them being serious. In their discussion the authors stressed the importance of chiropractic for seniors when they said, “As the population continues to age there will be a greater need for the chiropractic profession to meet the needs of the older adult.”

A study published on December 21, 2010 in the journal Chiropractic & Osteopathy reviewed how senior citizens utilize chiropractic care. The study was based on data obtained from a survey and Medicare claims from the years 1993 to 2007.

During the time of the study it was shown that 14.6 percent of seniors had used chiropractic at some time. However, many of those only used care in one of the years in the study. This meant that on average 4.8% of seniors used chiropractic in any given year.

The study noted that previous research showed that the population in general utilized chiropractic at a higher rate than did seniors in this study. The general population was reported to go to chiropractors at a rate of between 6.8% and 16% annually depending on the location and time of the study.

The study reported that the average senior who went to the chiropractor averaged 19.5 visits in a year. Other facts of usage also showed that the percentage of seniors going to chiropractors was higher in rural areas. The study also showed that chiropractic patients had greater mobility and function with simple tasks such as light lifting, climbing stairs and walking several blocks. Overall the study showed that the senior chiropractic patients had less difficulty with daily activities.

One interesting finding of the study was that those patients who went to the chiropractor more than 12 visits seemed to utilize chiropractic care at a much higher rate than the rest of the senior population who was seeing chiropractors. This shows that those who incorporate chiropractic as a part of their regular healthcare continue chiropractic even after their Medicare benefits have been exhausted.

The general population is going to chiropractors in record numbers. Seniors, the fastest segment of the population is no exception. According to a recent August 24th 1999 article in USA Today, more than 80% of seniors age 65 or greater are aware of what the article termed alternative medicine. This awareness has lead to a fairly fast growing utilization of these services. The breakdown for usage of chiropractic and other non-medical health care is as follows:

Chiropractic lead the way with a utilization of 32%, second was massage therapy at 16%, followed by acupuncture 9%, homeopathy at 4%, naturopathy 3% and Chinese medicine 3%.

A recent study published in Topics in Clinical Chiropractic of a randomized clinical trial showed data that found chiropractic geriatric patients were “less likely to have been hospitalized, less likely to have used a nursing home, more likely to report a better health status, more likely to exercise vigorously, and more likely to be mobile in the community.”