What is a chiropractor?

I am very tight on time at the moment, so rather than writing an original post I am sampling some small segments of the information on Wikipedia defining and describing a chiropractor. i.e. what they are and what they do. You can see the full page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic.

Chiropractic is a health care profession that emphasizes diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system and particularly the spine. A therapist called D.D. Palmer founded chiropractic approach to treatment in the 1890’s.

In many countries and cultures chiropractors are considered to be a complementary or alternative therapy although this is now changing and they are being acknowledged as a part of main-stream health care.

Osteopathy is an alternative treatment approach to those with similar complaints and is viewed in a similar light.

What Chiropractic treatment does

Chiropractic treatment focuses on manual therapy including spinal manipulation and other joint and soft tissue manipulation. Its hypothesis assumes that a vertebral subluxation or spinal joint dysfunction can interfere with the body's function and its ability to heal itself. A chiropractor aims to correct this by making specific adjustments to the positioning and alignment of the bones.

Treatment techniques

The main form of treatment is spinal manipulation, which chiropractors refer to as "chiropractic adjustment". There are several schools of chiropractic adjustive techniques, although most chiropractors mix techniques from different schools.

Many other procedures are used by chiropractors for treating the spine, other joints and tissues, and general health issues.

All chiropractors require a qualification and medical registration in order to practice, but how and where this is done will depend upon the regulations of the nation in question. In both the UK and USA regulation is very strict and chiropractic treatment is often suggested by doctors, GP’s, MD’s etc.