E-mail message this week .. Prevent Future Patients

 

It’s time now to focus on a spinal crisis in the making. Dentists used fluoride as a means to prevent future cavities and whether the theory and health benefits were sound, they placed their profession and prevention in the same sentence. Furthermore, they created an awareness for family care, especially children. In one promotion they were eliminating their cavity eradication business for the sake of renewed interest in dental care and dentists. Seems, it didn’t hurt their business in the short or long run.

 

Chiropractic has a great opportunity to be vocal and in the forefront of their communities school book bag crisis. Yes, this is old news, but rather than parents, teachers and book publishers taking heed of the message, the bags seem to get bigger, some schools prohibit bags with wheels and the unrelenting wear and tear of the young spine does not abate. Research is easy to find with any search engine while data clearly shows a crisis looms each school year and more awareness needs to be applied.

 

So, what are you waiting for, this is a golden opportunity to bring new patients to your office, expand awareness of chiropractic as a proactive healthcare provider and you as a caring community advocate. It also allows you increased community credibility when invited to PTA meetings, social gatherings or church programs to discuss this crisis, evaluate and teach parents and kids to be spine conscious, how best to pack a school book bag and how continued spinal and physical stress not only invites pain but also visceral dysfunction.

 

If you have equity in the stock market, you are acutely aware of the stress to your portfolio. The lighthearted amongst us have jumped ship and bailed out for cash or took advantage of treasury notes. Others weather the storm and hope that sooner than later clearer skies will bring their shares into the light again and with patience it will. But, there are others that make lemonade from lemons and see a downturn as a buying opportunity and tweak their portfolio for the long haul and make wise investment choices. Which one of these are you?

 

This is our buying opportunity and unfortunately, like last year and the year before, most of us will miss the opportunity to buy the trust of our communities and take the high road in this effort to prevent future chiropractic patients.

 

Just watch kids run to their school buses flopping their overstocked book bags as if they were on a special forces covert military mission. If you were able to record this and play it back in slow motion or show slides or Powerpoint programs of the crisis and solutions to a PTA meeting or other group of concerned parents and educators and better yet to your patients, the oohs and ahhs will be deafening. It would show clearly the push and pulls on delicate cervical and thoracic spines and the pounding on the lumbar while they dashed to their destinations. Worse yet is the held on one shoulder bags that drag down the brachial plexus causing brachial palsy a diagnostic marker pediatricians are finding more readily and emergency room visits becoming more common due to book bag distress.

 

Don’t believe me, fine, do your own research and search under book bag injuries and other like phrases and tell me there is no crisis and you, the structural scientist concerned with spinal balance, posture and neurological integrity are not the professional to be in the forefront of concern.

 

Do your homework, write to the editor of your local papers, send e-mail newsletters of concern to your patients and community and get the word out. Statistics can be found on the web and within the ACA, ICA and many state association websites. In fact, your state district associations should band together and begin a campaign of awareness now. Be the expert, the advocate and promote spinal health with awareness

 

What Are You Waiting For Next Year