Military Personnel Find Relief from More Chiropractic Care Available in the VA
The spines of our veterans need beneficial care. Veterans need access to chiropractic care - just like their fellow Baton Rouge chiropractic spine pain patients - and now can get it. Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers is the Baton Rouge back pain specialty center for spine pain, back pain, neck pain, arm pain and leg pain relief for Baton Rouge veterans and Baton Rouge back pain patients. Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers offers relieving Baton Rouge chiropractic care to any Baton Rouge back pain patients wanting back pain relief!
WHAT HAPPENS TO THEIR SPINES?
Data from the Veterans’ Administration (VA), “diseases of the musculoskeletal system/connective system” like back pain are the top issues for veterans coming back from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. (1) To what is it attribute? Most of us would assume it is due to carrying weighty backpacks and weapons. (2) One study points out that back pain is found more in military construction and law enforcement personnel. (3) Reason for back pain for non-military folks like Baton Rouge residents apply to military, too, like injury, posture, daily activity, weight, stress, genetic defects, etc.
RELIEF FOR A VETERAN
One military officer with a 20-year history of mechanical back pain secondary to an injury sustained during active military duty lived with intermittent radiation of numbness and tingling down the right leg to the knee. Chiropractic care afforded him a 25% reduction in low back pain severity and a 22% reduction in his disability. The program of conservative, chiropractic management included 10 treatments of lumbar flexion/distraction and activity modification in eight weeks. Despite the fact that he’d had this pain for some time, he gained relief. (4) After 20 years, such drops in pain and disability would clearly be appreciated by Baton Rouge back pain sufferers, too.
BENEFICIAL CHIROPRACTIC CARE FOR VETERANS’ SPINES INSTEAD OF OPIOIDS
1999 marked the year of the US law authorizing the VA to provide chiropractic care via private sector chiropractors. (5) From 2004 (the year the law was passed that chiropractic was to be accessible in the VA system) to 2015, annual chiropractic VA patients grew by 821%, chiropractic visits by 694%, number of clinics by 9%, chiropractic employees by 21%. (5) Recently, 70 VA facilities have chiropractors on staff. (1) Nearly 100 VA facilities still have little to no availability. (2) If a VA facility does not have a chiropractor(s) on staff, veterans (if they ask) are allowed to obtain a referral to a local chiropractor like yours at Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers for care. Many do not know about this benefit or that they can be helped with chiropractic care. Chiropractic as a profession and your Baton Rouge chiropractic persist in trying to get the word out to the public about how it can relieve musculoskeletal pain, back pain, sciatica, neck pain and arm radiculopathy, how it can help with pain management. Today, many veterans - like many others in the general population - are struggling with prescription opioid pain drugs. (6) The opioid epidemic is everywhere; chiropractic care may help curb its effects for military veterans as it does for general population Baton Rouge pain patients.
ACCESS TO CHIROPRACTIC EXPANDS IN THE U.S.
Chiropractic researchers try to make sure that military personnel have access to chiropractic care. One group created an integrated care pathway for doctors of chiropractic, primary care providers, and mental health professionals who direct the care of veterans with low back pain, with or without mental health comorbidity, within Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care facilities. (7) Lately, the US House sanctioned expansion of chiropractic services in the VA. Availability is to rise to at least two medical centers/clinics in each Veterans Integrated Service Network by December 31, 2019, and be at 50% of them by December 31, 2021. (1) Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers welcomes the confidence in chiropractic care this action shows.
CONTACT Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers
Listen to this PODCAST from The Back Doctors’ Podcast about a military veteran with multiple spinal issues whose local chiropractor helped him find relief.
Schedule a Baton Rouge chiropractic appointment for yourself or a loved one – military veteran or not. Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers is well prepared to help alleviate the musculoskeletal spine pain and back pain conditions of all sorts faced by military personnel and military veterans with chiropractic care.
