26
Healthcare Journal of Baton Rouge
| March / April 2009 Issue
patient examination, diagnosis, and treatment.
Chiropractors have broad diagnostic skills and are also
trained to recommend therapeutic and rehabilitative exer-
cises, as well as to provide nutritional, dietary, and lifestyle
counseling.” The ACA follows the core chiropractic princi-
ple, “which holds that the relationship between structure
and function in the human body is a significant health fac-
tor and that such relationships between the spinal column
and the nervous system are highly significant because the
normal transmission and expression of nerve energy are
essential to the restoration and maintenance of health.”
Members of the National Association of
Chiropractic Medicine (NACM) take a much
narrower view and renounce the chiropractic
hypothesis as a basis for their scope of prac-
tice. NACM members accept the scientific fact
that "manipulative procedures" have validity
simply for affecting joint dysfunctional disor-
ders. NACM members confine their scope of
practice to “the treatment of joint dysfunction-
al disorders, which include the biomechanics
I am a very dynamic chiro-
practor. I like to send my
patients out for labs, diag-
nostic tests, and imaging,
just like a medical doctor.
Straight chiropractors don’t
believe in all that and practice
in a more narrow scope.
—Gerald Bell, DC