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| The above headline comes from the June 20, 2000 PRNewswire. In that article they state that "latest research from InterSurvey reveals two-thirds of Americans have tried at least one form of alternative treatment or therapy". The term alternative medicine from a chiropractic standpoint is not accurate. Chiropractic is not a form of medicine therefore it can not be referred to correctly as an alternative medicine. However many authors and researchers inside the medical field continue, as in this story to use that term. According to the research, herbal medicines, chiropractic service and massage are the most popular forms of what they called alternative medicine. The survey showed that slightly more men went to chiropractors than women. Of those in the survey, a full 37% had been under chiropractic care. This represents the highest number yet published in similar studies and continues to show a steady growth in the number of people seeking chiropractic care. According to the research, 62% of those who used "alternatives" did so because of the recommendation of a friend. Other reasons listed in the article were: traditional medicine was not working (sited in 28 percent); looking for a complement to a health routine (23 percent); recommendation from a doctor (amazingly mentioned by 22 percent of those in the study); and information from the printed press or Internet source (listed by 20 percent). |
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| According to a recent survey conducted for and published in American Demographics January 2001 issue by the research firm Taylor Nelson Sofres Intersearch, 70% of Americans have tried or are currently using what the study called, alternative medicine. These types of numbers beg us to ask some questions. First, why is it called an alternative if more than half the people are using it? Secondly, why is it called alternative medicine when none of the types of care in the study are, or use medicine? According to the survey, 44% of the general public utilizes some form of “faith healing” or prayer. This was the most popular approach as found by the study. According to the study, chiropractic or massage was the second most popular with 33% of the population using these. These numbers verify previous studies done by other researchers also showing the large increase in utilization of chiropractic services over the past decade. The study goes on to point out that women are more receptive than men to using the “alternatives” as named by the study. There were also some large regional differences noted in the survey. Americans from the Western US were 16% more likely to visit a chiropractor than was the rest of the country. Southerners were more likely to practice faith healing than the rest of the nation, and Midwesterners were the least likely to use any of the alternatives named in the survey. The type of illness that a person suffers also has an effect on what type of care they will seek. The survey showed that when asked a hypothetical question, people who said if they were diagnosed with a medically easily treatable disease would be less likely to try an “alternative”. On the other hand those people said that if they were diagnosed with a complex, potentially fatal illness, they would overwhelmingly inquire about alternative care. In this scenario almost double, or 60% of those surveyed said they would seek alternatives when faced with such a serious health concern. On the other hand only 11% said they would seek out alternative care if they felt they were in overall good health. Age also played a role in the determination of usage of alternatives. The age group from 35 to 54 was constantly more likely to use alternatives than the age group 18 to 34. With each of the alternatives named in the survey differences ranged from 5% to over 10% more for the older groups. With these types of ever increasing usages it is probably time that we stop referring to these as alternatives and start calling them other forms of main stream health care. |
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A magazine not normally shown to be favorable to chiropractic, Consumer Reports, (CR), conducted a survey of its readers to determine their views on what they called alternative medicine. Although the term does not really fit chiropractic, since we are not a medicine, CR did include chiropractic into that category. The results of the survey were favorable toward alternatives in general and chiropractic in particular. Here are some of the results.
In addition to the Consumer Reports survey they mentioned that several national telephone surveys showed that over half of all North Americans ages 35 to 49 have tried "alternatives". In a recent survey in Minnesota, 48% said they had tried what that survey called "complementary therapy", (again a poor choice of terms to include chiropractic). Of that number a full 70% said they used chiropractic. |
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