All excerpted posts are © the original author. Please consult their blog for the full story and to comment.

rampant

Friday, 27 January 2017

Cerebral Haemorrhage Following Chiropractic ‘Activator’ Treatment

We have repeatedly discussed the risks of chiropractic spinal manipulation (see, for instance here, here and here). Some chiropractors seem to believe that using a hand-held manipulator, called ‘activator’, better controls the forces used on the spine and therefore is safer. This recent paper raises doubts on this hypothesis.

A neurosurgeon from Florida published the case-report of a 75-year-old active woman who presented to a local hospital emergency room with a 3-day history of the acute onset of severe left temporal headache, initially self-treated with non-steroidals, to which they were resistant. Additional complaints included some vague right eye blurring of vision and a mild speech disturbance. Her primary-care physician had ordered an outpatient MRI, which was interpreted as showing a small sub-acute left posterior temporal lobe haemorrhage. He then referred her to the emergency room where she was categorized as a “stroke alert” and evaluated according to the hospital “stroke-alert” protocol...

Read on: Cerebral Haemorrhage Following Chiropractic ‘Activator’ Treatment