CF 219: Neurodynamic Moves Solve Problems – So Does The Inversion Table Today we’re going to talk about inversion tables and Neurodynamic exercises.  But first, here’s that sweet sweet bumper music

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OK, we are back and you have found the Chiropractic Forward Podcast where we are making evidence-based chiropractic fun, profitable, and accessible while we make you and your patients better all the way around.  We’re the fun kind of research. Not the stuffy, high-brow kind of research. We’re research talk over a couple of beers. I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.   If you haven’t yet I have a few things you should do. 

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You have found yourself smack dab in the middle of Episode #219 Now if you missed last week’s episode , we talked about Masterminds  – chiropractic masterminds and the MCM Mastermind I’m in specifically with Dr. Kevin Christie. Make sure you don’t miss that info. Keep up with the class. 

On the personal end of things…..

What a weekend down in Lubbock, TX for the Texas Chiropractic Association’s MidWinter conference. I got to hang out with my friend Dr. Tim Bertlesmen. What a guy, what a teacher, and what a positive force for our entire profession.  Sitting through one of his courses is like having golden knowledge nuggets just chunked at you from a nerf gun. Pow, pow, kablam, splat. Just like that. Over and over. Only you don’t dodge the nuggets. You just step right into them and let them sink right in. He as good as it gets out there. 

One of his nuggets I’ll share with you is hip abductors. If you are not assessing your new patients for weak hip abductors, get to researching and make it happen, muy pronto mi amigo.  Luckily, in my coursework with the Diplomate of the International Academy of Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine, Dr. Bertlesman is an instructor and taught us about hip abductors a few years ago. Now, my secret is out!! Lol. Really though, be checking those hip abductors because they can be the missing puzzle piece to longstanding low back pain, hip pain, knee pain and chondromalacia patellae, and ankle and foot problems. Up to and including plantar fasciitis. 

I got to teach while at the conference. I’ve taught a couple of courses for the TCA but they were COVID-era virtual courses. This was the first 2-hour live crowd presentation that I’ve been the presenter on and I have to say; I was a tad anxious but once I got started and into the material, it went very well and smoothly.  I had some good buddies in the crowd so it was even a bit like a conversation rather than a presentation. I had several tell me that was the most they’ve taken away from a course in several years. Made me feel good and gave me encouragement that I’m going in the right direction. 

Then if you’ve been listening, you know I have a rental down there on Airbnb so spent Sunday at the rental staining the deck and the fence. A not-so-nice end to the seminar weekend.  Business seems to be picking back up which seems to be directly related to the omicron variant settling back down here in the Texas Panhandle. But, we can’t discount the fact that more people are meeting their deductibles in mid-February to early March as well.  Either way, who cares? It equals to more business! Onward to research

Item #1

I’m just going to say that I got the research today from ChiroUp’s research roundup and thank you again to Dr. Tim Bertlesmen and Dr. Brandon Steele for being outstanding.  This one is called “Lumbar disc disease: the effect of inversion on clinical symptoms and a comparison of the rate of surgery after inversion therapy with the rate of surgery in neurosurgery controls” by Mendelow et. al. (Alexander D. Mendelow 2021) and was published in Journal of Physical Therapy Science in 2021 so it’s hot hot hot. 

Why They Did It

We have previously shown inversion therapy to be effective in a small prospective randomised controlled trial of patients with lumbar disc protrusions. Our purpose now was to measure symptoms and to compare the surgery rate following inversion for 85 participants with the surgery rate in 3 control groups.

How They Did It

• Each of the 85 inverted participants acted as their own control for the “symptomatic” part of the study. 


• In the “Need for surgery” part of the study, one control group was made up of similar patients with leg pain and sciatica who were referred to the same clinic in the same year. 


• Two additional control groups were examined: the original control group from the pilot trial and the lumbar disc surgery waiting list patients.

What They Found

• Inversion therapy relieved symptoms: there were improvements in the Visual Analogue Score, Roland Morris and Oswestry Disease indices, and Health Utility Score compared with their pre-treatment status. 


• Also, the 2-year surgery rate in the inversion participants in the registry (21%) was significantly lower than in the matched control group (39% at two years and 43% at four years).


• It was also lower than the surgery rate in the other 2 control groups.

Wrap It Up

Inversion therapy relieved symptoms and avoided surgery. And let me tell