RESEARCH IMPACT: PATIENT CARE

Dr. Cancelliere and her team are trying to demonstrate what is possible, moving the needle for chiropractic’s application with patients suffering disabilities related to spinal disorders.

“There is a large, unmet need in the world—disability related to spinal disorders—and chiropractors can play a central role in meeting that need.” – Dr. Carol Cancelliere

Increasing Evidence-Based Guideline Adoption

Part of Dr. Cancelliere’s work is focused on developing guideline-implementation toolkits. Her team is starting with three toolkits—focusing on concussion, headache and lumbar spinal stenosis. She is using the knowledge-to-action framework to effectively transfer her research findings into practice.

This framework involves building a comprehensive research team. Carol’s team will include end users, such as representative Canadian chiropractors and their patients, a knowledge-translation expert, and a professor in education who specializes in optimizing information delivery based on how people learn and the sociology behind learning.

The knowledge-to-action framework allows for a proper needs-assessment, identifying what and how to transfer knowledge to chiropractors and their patients. “You can’t just give guidelines to chiropractors and expect them to read and use them. They’re too long, too technical, and it can be hard to isolate the information they need,” Carol said.

FUTURE RESEARCH IMPACT: CREATING A NEW GUIDELINE

Together, Dr. Cancelliere’s team is working on a new guideline that addresses disability related to spinal disorders.

“This guideline is very important as low back pain is a leading cause of disability worldwide. Chiropractors need to take a lead on addressing this issue,” she said.

Dr. Cancelliere thinks that chiropractors have great, unique potential to fill the growing gap in today’s MSK patient care. She believes that collaboration across the healthcare system, and other sectors, and practising according to the evidence are necessary for the chiropractic profession to bridge this gap. “People need to know what this profession has to offer and what we can do. That’s why consistency is important and that’s why we need to continue to demonstrate our care through evidence.”