Shari Wynd

There has been little study of the recognition of mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) by the chiropractic practitioner, or of the inquiry by the clinician to assess those patients who may be suffering from the condition, but fail to report the symptoms. Although severe cases of TBI are more often recognized and treated by attendance to hospital or emergency room, MTBI is less recognizable and would present a long-term risk to the patient. Given the clinical risk associated with failure to recognize such injuries, training of the clinician in the subtle signs of MTBI is imperative. What we currently know about training in the recognition of MTBI is from limited recent knowledge based studies. This study is intended to assess the self-reported mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) knowledge, recognition and treatment by chiropractic practitioners. A previously published standardized set of survey items was distributed to a captive audience of chiropractic practitioners at the July 2016 Texas Chiropractic College annual symposium. The sample population was a convenience sample of chiropractic clinicians who were assessed for MTBI knowledge and common practices. There was a response rate of 43% of the 125 attendees. The survey demonstrated confidence in MTBI diagnosis. Average MTBI knowledge and recognition score was only 27% ± 22%. Frequency of MTBI patients presenting to the chiropractic clinician office was an average of less than one per month. Sixty nine percent (69%) of the clinicians relied upon their history and clinical exam for diagnosis. There was no knowledge of the Balance Error Scoring system and only 20% utilized the Standardized Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT). The primary action of the chiropractic clinician who suspected MTBI was to refer to a neurological specialist (76%). A small minority of practitioners would provide treatment. There is an overconfidence of the chiropractic practitioner in recognition of MTBI which is incongruent with the low knowledge scores. Further education of the chiropractic clinician is warranted. University Hospital Medical Information Network Clinical Trials Registry. Retrospectively registered (UMIN-CTR), trial number: UMIN#000029744 (Receipt# R000033980) data: October 27, 2017.​Date of enrollment 7/14/2016.

Cervical artery dissection (CAD) and stroke are serious harms that are sometimes associated with cervical spinal manipulation therapy (cSMT). Because of the relative rarity of these adverse events, studying them prospectively is challenging. As a result, systematic review of reports describing these events offers an important opportunity to better understand the relation between adverse events and cSMT. Of note, the quality of the case report literature in this area has not yet been assessed. 1) To systematically collect and synthesize available reports of CAD that have been associated with cSMT in the literature and 2) assess the quality of these reports. A systematic review of the literature was conducted using several databases. All clinical study designs involving CADs associated with cSMT were eligible for inclusion. Included studies were screened by two independent reviewers for the presence/absence of 11 factors considered to be important in understanding the relation between CAD and cSMT. Overall, 43 articles reported 901 cases of CAD and 707 incidents of stroke reported to be associated with cSMT. The most common type of stroke reported was ischemic stroke (92%). Time-to-onset of symptoms was reported most frequently (95%). No single case included all 11 factors. This study has demonstrated that the literature infrequently reports useful data toward understanding the association between cSMT, CADs and stroke. Improving the quality, completeness, and consistency of reporting adverse events may improve our understanding of this important relation.

The safety of spinal manipulation during pregnancy and the postpartum periods has been a matter of debate among manual therapists. Spinal manipulative therapy during these periods is a commonly performed intervention as musculoskeletal pain is common in these patients. To date there has not been an evaluation of the literature on this topic exclusively.