Tricksters - ChiroQuacks

This is usually preceded by the infamous 'let's measure your heels' speech.

                                 

These patients could have one femur bone shorter than the other while the tibia bones are the same length and this chiropractic 'scientific' technique will yield a leg length assessment, and, of course, the famous low back-cracking adjustment to the rescue.



These patients are in for a lumbar back-cracking adjustment if one foot extends away from the body more than the other. Crunch! Crack! "________, your heels lengths are equal and your hips are now UNbalanced. "


If only your ChiroQuack measured your leg lengths the proper way, which I have NEVER seen in 25 years of chiropractic care, and, most likely, neither have you:

So you may ask, "What is the proper treatment when I look like this from behind?"

Answer: NOT a ChiroQuack lumbar adjustment.



How about wearing a foot support under the short [in this case, left] side! Or being assessed for ligamental damage to your knee on the short side? *

Multi Million Dollar Scam: Bad for you and good for DC http://www.footlevelers.com/ 

Quotes From A Real Chiropractor and Physical Therapist

'With regard to leg length discrepancy, this is controversial. Here is an example. I weigh you on two scales. Before I do this you know your total weight is 200. However you weigh 75 on the right and 125 on the left. That's about a 12 % difference. 5 -7% difference would be reasonable. After all we are not perfectly bilaterally symmetric. Typically, the heavier leg will be the shorter one because we are leaning into it.
Now I lay you on your side with the shorter leg up. I rotate or adjust or manipulate or mobilize your pelvis anterior and inferior. Typically your leg length inequality will even out than I reweigh you typically now you will be 100 lbs on each side. 
This is an example of functional leg length discrepancy. If it were not that and structural the weight will still be off. The leg will not come down. In that case we keep adding shims under the shorter leg up to only 1/4 " till scales balance out. If greater than 1/4" is required the actual heel of the footwear needs to be elevated.
Typically the shorter or heavier leg will also present with SI pain on that same side. This can also be proved by standing X-ray too but overkill.
Over the past 20 years and 1,000's of patients this has prevailed over 90% of the time. I have done this as a clinical trial as well with Orthopedic Scoliosis Surgeon Brett Bayhnam. I know this sounds like smoke and mirrors but actually so simple to prove scientifically and reproducible.'
Ron Grassi, DC., MS., FACFEI.

"When assessing the musculoskeletal system, the most important sign of dysfunction can be a leg length discrepancy (LLD). Many of those in the medical profession, including orthopedic physicians, Doctors of Osteopathy, Chiropractors and Physical Therapists often ignore how important a leg length discrepancy can be for a patient with pain or dysfunction. The following is based on personal clinical experience as a physical therapist and a teacher of the ETPS therapy assessing and treating more than 5000 patients and students. The most common factor found in most of the patients who complain of pain in the spine, lower extremities and/or sports injury is a leg length discrepancy (LLD). This is an extremely important finding and is essential in treating for pain because the LLD is the cause of the pain. In most cases, when the cause of the symptoms is taken away, the pain is eliminated.

"Often the solution for leg length discrepancy for physical therapists, Chiropractors, Doctors of Osteopathy and/or Podiatrists is a lift in the shoe. Orthopedic surgeons may attempt to correct a limb length discrepancy with surgery. This may correct alignment temporarily but will not correct the original issue which is the cause for the LLD. Several years ago, while working in a pediatric hospital, I had several patients, all male teenagers, who had lumbar laminectomies to correct injuries sustained from playing football or soccer. They all had a leg length discrepancy. This got me thinking. Could this LLD be a factor in their injury? Over the next few years I evaluated every patient I treated for leg length discrepancy. In 2007, when I was working as a physical therapist in an outpatient clinic for a year, I found that 80% of my patients with musculoskeletal pain had a leg length discrepancy. In the pediatric hospital, when training patients with crutches prior to a foot surgery for non- traumatic foot pain, I discovered all the patients had a leg length discrepancy. The For me it was clear that this difference in leg length weakens and produces unbalance of the loads of the musculoskeletal system so an injury was more likely to occur.
Ricardo Hidalgo, PT http://www.biomagneticusa.com/biomagnetictherapy.html#leglength  

<sup>Now you can run out of the treatment room when the ChiroQuack says that you need to treat the rest of your distortion with the hands of God:



Ask any physical therapist or orthopedic/physiatrist MD/DO.


Leg length measurements done according to Hoppenfeld</sup>

References

Leg Length Differences - A Tailor knows more than your Chiropractor

There have been many studies to show that there is frequently a difference in one leg as compared to the other. Statistics range from as low as 40 percent to as high as 93 percent of the subjects examined have a leg length difference or asymmetry. In my own statistical analysis of over 1000 runners I have found over 90 percent have a difference in leg length of 1/4 inch or more.

*Causes
While there are many individual causes of leg length differences, we can categorize them as one of three types: structural, functional, or a combination of both.

The structural type relates to the actual shortening of one or more bones. This is a real or anatomical short leg. It is important to under stand that this shortening can affect other areas of the body, such as the hip, back, shoulders and neck. For example, on the short leg side the hip will be lower, the back will be curved towards the long leg side (scoliosis), and the shoulders will tilt toward the long side.

A functional leg length discrepancy is a result of abnormal positioning of the leg in the hips, muscle imbalances, abnormal leg rotations, or faulty foot function. This type of leg length discrepancy has the same appearance as the structural leg difference.

The third type, the combination, is actually the most common as pointed out in the study by Okun, Morgan, and Burns. They concluded that the great majority (89 percent) of their sample who had a leg length discrepancy actually had a combination structural functional deformity.

TOTAL FOOT & ANKLE OF OHIO 
http://totalfootandankle.com/common-foot-ankle-conditions/leg-length-differences/ 

Clinical Application of Neuromuscular Techniques

http://books.google.com.pa/books?id=09fssXGvlrIC&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=hoppenfeld+leg+length+discrepancy&source=bl&ots=qkEjmvkmu_&sig=l9U3Rjk8ziDXDfNwNLhL1G0779U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6hQwUOrhFbCw0AHfq4CQAQ&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=hoppenfeld%20leg%20length%20discrepancy&f=false


ChiroQuack Horror Stories

‘'I have never had anything to do with Chiropractic practice management. In my earliest years as a Chiropractor I was introduced to it through the first office I worked in. That Chiro saw 140 patients a day. I was there for about 2 months and quit because their tactics disgusted me ...
‘'So I am very aware of what goes on in the profession. Sad. But like any other profession there are good and bad. It is unfortunate that the original purpose of Chiropractic, like most healing arts, has been caught up in the business of chasing symptoms. And there is a lot of money in that! I have always used my license as a tool to educate people to eat healthy and exercise intelligently. The Chiropractic adjustments I give are not for symptomatic relief but to establish balance so that the nervous system can function normally. All the rest is about public education in lifestyle awareness and offering suggestions for changes that may help people to live more comfortable with less pain and disease. Some listen and some don't." Bob Bacher, DC