Another wheelchair filled with the help of a chiropractor

A 45 year old male with presented to his internist with a two-week history of right sided neck pain and tenderness, accompanied by tingling in the hand. The internists’ neurological examination revealed nothing abnormal, except for a decreased range of motion of the right arm. He referred the patient to a chiropractor who performed plain X-rays which apparently showed “mild spasm” (how anyone can see spasm on an X-ray is beyond me!). No magnetic resonance imaging study was done.

http://edzardernst.com/2013/08/another-wheelchair-filled-with-the-help-of-a-c...


The chiropractor proceeded manipulating the patient’s neck on two successive days. By the morning of the third visit, the patient reported extreme pain and difficulty walking. Without performing a new neurological examination or obtaining a magnetic resonance study, the chiropractor manipulated the patient’s neck for a third time.

Thereafter, the patient immediately became quadriplegic. Despite undergoing an emergency C5 C6 anterior cervical diskectomy/fusion to address a massive disc found on the magnetic resonance scan, the patient remained quadriplegic. There seemed to be very little doubt that the quadriplegia was caused by the chiropractic spinal manipulation.

The authors of this report also argue that a major point of negligence in this case was the failure of both the referring internist and chiropractor to order a magnetic resonance study of the cervical spine prior to the chiropractic manipulations. In his defense, the internist claimed that there was no known report of permanent quadriplegia resulting from neck manipulation in any medical journal, article or book, or in any literature of any kind or on the internet. Even the quickest of literature searches discloses this assumption to be wrong. The first such case seems to have been published as early as 1957. Since then, numerous similar reports have been documented in the medical literature.

The internist furthermore claimed that the risk of this injury must be vanishingly small given the large numbers of manipulations performed annually. As we have pointed out repeatedly, this argument is pure speculation; under-reporting of such cases is huge, and therefore exact incidence figures are anybody’s guess.

The patient sued both the internist and the chiropractor, and the total amount of the verdict was $14,596,000.00 the internist’s liability was 5% ($759,181.65).

http://edzardernst.com/2013/08/another-wheelchair-filled-with-the-help-of-a-c...

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