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July 2004 Table of Contents
ICA and Biotonix Reach a
Cooperative Agreement to Conduct A Large Posture Research Study
By Donald Hirsh, MS, DC, FICA
The ICA’s Posture Committee and Biotonix are planning the most significant study
in chiropractic history on the relationship between heath and postural
displacements. The research project will be directed by me, Deed Harrison, DC,
and Burt Holland, PhD. (Statistician at Temple University). Dr. Denise Perron
(Biotonix) will be providing the state of the art digital posture analysis
equipment for the study as well as significant infrastructure support.
This research, in the planning stage for two
years, will involve at least 2,000 subjects. Each subject will have a digital
postural scan using the latest PosturePrint® technology and they will fill out a
comprehensive health, as well as pain, questionnaire. The premise of the study
is that there is no correlation between poor posture and poor health and pain.
As in all good science, the goal is to try to prove yourself wrong. The study is
being carefully designed to produce the most robust conclusions. Half of the
subjects will self-select chiropractic care as new patients to volunteer
chiropractors selected using rigorous requirements by ICA’s Posture Committee.
The other half of the subjects will be friends or relatives of the first group
that are of similar age and the same gender, but they have not sought
chiropractic care.
Biotonix has created a new postural module to their system, called the
PosturePrint® in order to accurately collect the data needed for this study.
They obtained the aid of Tad Janik, PhD (Numerical Analyst in Alabama) to
perfect an accurate computer program to evaluate posture from three photographs
(AP view and both lateral views). Biotonix has agreed to partner this posture
project by making the data results accessible to the ICA Posture Committee and
Dr. Holland for statistical analysis.
Currently, reliability and repeatability
studies are ongoing to insure the validity of this research. Once these studies
are completed, the ICA’s Posture Committee will publish a request for doctors of
chiropractic to volunteer as data collectors. Rigorous standards for selection
and for training will be applied. The volunteer doctors, besides the
professional gratification, will receive complementary training in the state of
the art posture analysis technology as well as significant discounts on the
continued use of the PosturePrint® reports for their existing patient base. This
new Report, written by successful practitioners, can help with patient education
and it provides corrective exercises, individualized for each patient.
Prospective volunteers can contact me at
donald.hirsh@verizon.net . We are
planning to be operational and ready to collect data in September 2004.
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