Spine care should include prevention says spine society, chiropractors

A consensus from participants passed that prevention should be a present condition for all patients in regard to spine care

At the North American Spine Society 2019 Annual Meeting in Chicago, Ill., in late 2019, a consensus from participants passed that prevention should be a present condition for all patients in regard to spine care, as reported by the World Federation of Chiropractic January 2020 edition of its Quarterly World Report.

Doctors of chiropractic Claire Johnson and Brian Justice led a workshop initiating a multiprofessional conversation about the topic of prevention in spine care. According to the pair, the five categories of prevention are typically not included in traditional models of spine care.

Their presentation included “an overview of the spectrum of prevention, which includes primordial prevention that takes place before risk factors are present; primary prevention that takes place before condition occurs but risk factors are present; secondary prevention occurs during early development of condition; tertiary prevention that occurs after condition has occurred; and quaternary prevention that takes place at any time and focuses on to prevent over-diagnosis and over-treatment that may result in psychological, physical, and economic harms.”

It was recognized that there were many barriers to implementation, and Drs. Johnson and Justice will be working on a project to bring light to spine care and prevention and possible solutions.

Johnson, DC, MSEd, PhD, is a professor at the National University of Health Sciences, Lombard, Ill., and a health care provider at Qualcomm Health Center, Stanford Health Care, San Diego, Calif. She is the chair of the WFC Public Health Committee. Justice, DC is a medical director for Excellus BlueCross BlueShield’s Pathway Development and Spine Programs, and has practiced in a spine-focused chiropractic practice in a variety of private, industry and public settings.

For more info go to wfc.org.