Chicago DCs wield social media to increase focus on health, wellness

October 19, 2011 — A team of Chicago chiropractors have recently taken their online presence into the realms of social media to provide their patients with another layer of information about how they treat back pain and help with pain management.

The seven chiropractors working at the Health on Earth Wellness Centers, with offices in Tinley Park, Crestwood, and along the South Loop, hope that employing social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook will help them take their message about spine health to a larger audience, as well as help their current patients stay informed about new programs and projects run by the clinics.

A glance at the practice’s Facebook and Twitter pages displays updates urging patients to have their C1 or “atlas” vertebra (in the neck) checked for proper positioning. A recent update included: “Atlas controls the Blood supply to head, Pituitary Gland, Scalp, Facial bones, Brain, Inner and Middle Ear functions!”

They also provide links to articles that discuss how spinal alignment affects overall health and pain management. Further down the page, there are pictures posted of the clinics’ celebrations of chiropractic medicine’s 116th birthday, and pictures of the doctors and their staff serving meals at the local Pacific Garden Mission.

Dr. Frank Vaught, one of the chiropractic doctors, explains why they feel it is important to branch out into social media: “We have a great website that we are always working on, but we are looking at all of the ways we can get our message of total health and wellness out to the people. So it makes sense for us to use Facebook and Twitter as well, since they are such enormously popular ways for people to communicate right now.

Think about it: 800 million people use Facebook every day. That’s more than twice the population of the United States! So we hope our tweets and status updates can help get the message out that we do more than just treat back pain and help with pain management. Our core goal is really to help people avoid sickness and injury in the first place.”

Every few days, one of the doctors posts a status message regarding their chiropractic care services, such as massage therapy, and how their techniques can affect overall health and wellness. People who “Like” the page can also post questions or comment on the chiropractors’ posts just as they can on the wellness blog. The chiropractors hope that they can use their Twitter and Facebook accounts to generate discussion and promote community involvement in health and wellness issues.

According to the Health on Earth Wellness Centers’ Facebook page, they already have 94 fans who “like” their page. Dr. LaToya Glass-Sherman says that, “94 may not seem like much, but that’s 94 people who feel better than they did. As we make the world better, one spine at a time, that number will grow. And that’s what real health care is all about; making the world a better place.”

Source: Health on Earth Wellness Centers, http://healthonearth.org