As February rolls around and the New Year ramps up to full swing, it is a good time to look ahead to the year to come at the Australian Spinal Research Foundation. 2024 was a big year behind the scenes, as we continued to increase the amount and visibility of valuable chiropractic research. This work is invaluable, as we collaborate with world-class chiropractors and researchers across the globe, in order to serve chiropractic by developing our evidence base. It’s work we can only do because of our members and donors. Here’s how we are serving you this year.
Focus on Functional Health and Quality of Life
The last three years have seen us dedicating a significant amount of our resources to the topics of immunity, adaptability and stress. On the back of a life-altering pandemic, these issues didn’t just go to the heart of chiropractic but the heart of what was going on in communities and households across the world. With a number of large studies and case reports covering stress, immunity or adaptability in the context of subluxation-based care, we now turn our eyes to functional health outcomes and quality of life.
In an interview last year, foundation president Dr Ryan Seaman spoke about the shift from pain-based research to functional health outcomes and quality of life. “It’s about measuring different outcomes beyond pain and using long-term tools and how to use them better in practice—finding a way to measure outcomes more than pain-based in the research. Most of our research, unfortunately, looks at conditions or pain. And when only looking at those two things, we’re missing a lot of the benefits.” He believes it’s important we gather research from all ages, from paediatrics to geriatrics.
By focusing our efforts here, we aim to empower chiropractors with the tools to measure and communicate the essential changes that go on in the nervous system and body of the person under care. This also allows us to capture what matters to the people we care for. As chiropractors and researchers, the things that excite us include brain changes, postural changes, increases in nervous system adaptability and functional health measures. But what matters to the person under care is how that impacts their life. This is the quality-of-life piece that doesn’t just guide our efforts but reinforces why chiropractic works.
Presently, we are compiling evidence on paediatric chiropractic care for the CDC, and will be increasing our paediatric research footprint over the coming year (more details soon).
Australian-born, global reach
We must admit the irony of the name, Australian Spinal Research Foundation, as our work includes researchers and chiropractors from all over the world. “We do have global reach, and the only reason we are called ASRF is that we were founded here in Australia. We fund research around the world,” said Dr Ryan.
This year, we approved case report submissions from Singapore to the USA as well as all across Australia. We also welcomed another international board Director, Dr Christie Kwon, who joins Dr Bruce Steinberg as an international representative, bringing a huge amount of expertise and experience to the table.
More resources for members
You asked us, we listened. Making chiropractic research easier to access and disseminate is now a core part of what we do. If you haven’t done so, check out the members portal for social media posts ready to share, as well as posters, information sheets, research summaries, podcast episodes and more.
We know that running a busy practice is one thing, but engaging on social media in a compliant and impactful way is a whole job in and of itself. That’s why we create slides that summarise and reference research in succinct ways so that you can use it to engage with and inform your tribe.
All of this is geared at keeping some simple things top of mind: chiropractic care is impactful, and the evidence base showing the why and the how is only growing.
Thanks for being part of the tribe that makes it all happen.