10/27/2017

UCLA Pediatric Pain and Palliative Care Program Director, Lonnie Zeltzer, MD, Joins F4CP in Recommending Drug-Free Chiropractic Care for Pediatric Pain Management

The Foundation for Chiropractic Progress (F4CP), a leading voice of the chiropractic profession and partner of the MAC in sponsoring September’s Drug-Free Pain Management Awareness Month, emphasizes the safety and effectiveness of non-pharmacologic chiropractic care for children and infants. Lonnie Zeltzer, MD, director of the California-based Pediatric Pain and Palliative Care Program, advises that drugs are not the only way to address chronic pain.

“The prevention and treatment of pain can be addressed through many different modalities, with chiropractic care being one," says Dr. Zeltzer, who is a professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “We now know that body manipulation such as chiropractic care with a licensed, experienced chiropractor can have many physical, emotional and biologic benefits to reduce pain.”

According to the National Health Interview Survey (1), 3.3 percent of children were cared for by a chiropractor in 2012 – a total of almost 2 million children that received chiropractic and osteopathic manipulation care. For infants, a 2009 study (2) found 78 percent of infants under chiropractic care were able to exclusively breastfeed after 2-5 sessions of chiropractic care within a two-week period. In another study (3), infants with colic that excessively cried were five times less likely to cry significantly if they were provided chiropractic care. In this particular study, infants showed approximately a 50 percent reduction in crying time compared with infants provided only the usual medical management.

"Chiropractic care has become a mainstream first-line option for children,” says Sherry McAllister, DC, executive vice president, F4CP. “According to a two-month study (4) with 81 children with asthma who received chiropractic care, results revealed that those under care saw a 45 percent decrease in the number of “attacks” and that 31 percent of the subjects voluntarily chose to decrease their medication.”

Source: Foundation for Chiropractic Progress

References

(1) Black LI, Clarke TC, Barnes PM, Stussman BJ, Nahin RL. Use of complementary health approaches among children aged 4-17 years in the United States: National Health Interview Survey, 2007-2012. National health statistics reports; no 78. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2015.

(2) “Contribution of chiropractic therapy to resolving suboptimal breastfeeding: a case series of 114 infants,” Miller JE1, Miller L, Sulesund AK, Yevtushenko A., J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2009 Oct;32(8):670-4.

(3) “Efficacy of Chiropractic Manual Therapy on Infant Colic: A Pragmatic Single-Blind, Randomized Controlled Trial,” Joyce E. Miller, BS, DC, DABCO, David Newell, PhD, Jennifer E. Bolton, PhD, J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2012 (Oct); 35 (8): 600–607

(4) “An Impairment Rating Analysis, Of Asthmatic Children Under Chiropractic Care,” Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research 1997; 1 (4) Jul: 1–8