Author: Dr Anthony Lambert

A case study pub­lished in the Jour­nal of Upper Cer­vi­cal Chi­ro­prac­tic Research on June 20, 2013, reports on the results of a case series show­ing chi­ro­prac­tic help­ing patients with depres­sion and anx­i­ety. This case series was look­ing for fol­low up on pre­vi­ous sur­veys show­ing that chi­ro­prac­tic patients felt chi­ro­prac­tic care helped with their men­tal and emo­tional states.

The authors begin by report­ing that a pre­vi­ous study showed that in a sur­vey of 2818 patients who com­pleted chi­ro­prac­tic care, 76% of those patients reported a mental/emotional improve­ment, as well as pos­i­tive changes in stress and life enjoy­ment over a period of sev­eral months fol­low­ing the chi­ro­prac­tic care. Addi­tional prior stud­ies also showed chi­ro­prac­tic care assist­ing patients with these types of men­tal health disorders.

This case series study involved six patients who responded to an Inter­net post­ing look­ing for peo­ple suf­fer­ing from mild to mod­er­ate depres­sion or anx­i­ety who wished to be a part of a study involv­ing chi­ro­prac­tic. The patients were not under any psy­chother­apy at the time and were given tests using stan­dard scales of psy­cho­log­i­cal test­ing to deter­mine and mea­sure their men­tal state prior to and after the chi­ro­prac­tic care.

All six of the par­tic­i­pants also suf­fered from a vari­ety of prob­lems includ­ing mus­cu­loskele­tal pains, asthma, hyper­ten­sion, gas­troin­testi­nal issues, and sleep dis­or­ders. Those who were tak­ing med­ica­tions made no changes to their med­ica­tions dur­ing the study to rule out any improve­ment due to medication.

For the pur­poses of this study, care was lim­ited to only 12 chi­ro­prac­tic vis­its over a six week period. A spe­cific analy­sis and form of chi­ro­prac­tic adjust­ing was used to cor­rect nerve sys­tem inter­fer­ence from sub­lux­a­tions. To mea­sure patient progress, a num­ber of pro­to­cols were used both to mon­i­tor the chi­ro­prac­tic cor­rec­tion of sub­lux­a­tions as well as to see any improve­ment in depres­sion or anxiety.

The results of the study were recorded for five of the six par­tic­i­pants as one par­tic­i­pant left the pro­gram due to a fam­ily emer­gency. The remain­ing five par­tic­i­pants all showed pos­i­tive results in most of the areas that the researchers mea­sured. All five also showed pos­i­tive test results for a decrease in nerve inter­fer­ence from sub­lux­a­tion. All five par­tic­i­pants showed a “…sig­nif­i­cant decrease in depres­sive symp­tom rat­ings.” All five mea­sured a “…sig­nif­i­cant decrease in anxiety.”

Addi­tion­ally, four of the five par­tic­i­pants who com­pleted the study also reported a self feel­ing of improve­ment with their depres­sion, enough to state that they would rec­om­mend this type of care to oth­ers with depres­sion. Four of the five par­tic­i­pants also reported sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments in the other health issues and prob­lems they were suf­fer­ing from at the begin­ning of the study.

In their con­clu­sion the authors wrote, “The results pro­vide ten­ta­tive sup­port for the effec­tive­ness of upper cer­vi­cal (neck) chi­ro­prac­tic care for anx­i­ety and depres­sion symp­toms.” They also stated, “The present study found reduc­tion in anx­i­ety and depres­sion symp­toms and reduc­tion in over­all psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­tress among indi­vid­u­als with mild to severe depres­sion, anx­i­ety or both.”

Roth, L., et al. “Upper cer­vi­cal chi­ro­prac­tic care as a com­ple­men­tary strat­egy for depres­sion and anx­i­ety: a prospec­tive case series analy­sis.” Jour­nal of Upper Cer­vi­cal Chi­ro­prac­tic Research (2013): 49 – 59.