1.4 NWHSU College of Chiropractic’s Health Care Model
Chiropractic is a patient-centered form of care that serves to promote health and wellness, diagnose and manage disease, relieve pain and suffering, and improve quality of life.
The College of Chiropractic’s model of health care embraces the responsibility to respond to the health care needs of the patient, as they relate to clinical problems and promotion of optimal health. This model is based on the principle that the body’s innate recuperative power is affected by and integrated through the nervous system.
With this underlying philosophy, chiropractic’s patient-centered perspective incorporates both therapeutic and preventative approaches. The therapeutic approach promotes improved health through the diagnosis and management of clinical conditions. The preventive approach requires attention to the patient’s health behaviors, and the maintenance of optimum body structure and neural function.
Chiropractic recognizes and places particular attention on the adjustment, correction and prevention of the subluxation complex in the preservation and restoration of health.
Doctors of Chiropractic employ their knowledge, clinical skills and judgment necessary to render a diagnosis and determine the most appropriate course of care and management for the patient, in a competent, caring and ethical manner. The practice of chiropractic includes:
- Obtaining the necessary clinical information to establish an accurate impression of the person’s health status including diagnosis. This clinical information includes but is not limited to:
- History
- Physical examination
- Biomechanical evaluation
- Radiological and laboratory examinations
- Detecting the presence and significance of a subluxation, or other alterations in body structure, and determining their contribution to the clinical picture. Subluxation is a complex of functional and/or structural and/or pathological articular changes that compromise neural integrity and may influence organ system function and general health. Clinical recognition of a subluxation may involve:
- Identification of spinal and other joint disrelationships;
- Changes in joint motion;
- Altered muscle tone, strength or length;
- Changes in paraspinal or dermatome temperatures;
- Altered sensation or reflexes;
- Inflammatory processes;
- Provoked pain or objective tenderness; or
- Changes in skin texture
- Utilization of diagnostic and treatment procedures that are supported by the best available evidence, clinical experience or consensus-driven guidelines and are in accordance with legal standards of care.
- Facilitating neurological and biomechanical integrity through chiropractic adjustments, mobilization and adjunctive therapies. Chiropractic adjustments include, but are not limited to:
- Health and wellness promotion, including:
- Advising and educating patients and the community about spinal health, healthful living practices, clinical preventative services and public health issues.
- Nutritional recommendations
- Exercise counseling
- Psychosocial supports and identification of the need for counseling
- Cooperative patient management with, referral to, communication and collaboration with other health care providers to ultimately benefit the patient.