Chiropractic + Naturopathic Doctor

WFC top research prizes go to Canada

Maria DiDanieli   

News

May 16, Toronto, Ont. – Researchers from Canada and
Switzerland won the main awards, newly named the NCMIC Louis Sportelli Research
Awards, at the World Federation of Chiropractic’s 25th Anniversary Congress
held in Durban, South Africa last month.

First prize, the Scott Haldeman Award (US$12,000), and the second prize (US$7,000)
both went to teams from the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in Toronto,
led respectively by Dr Jessica Wong and Dr Jairus Quesnele.

The study
from Dr. Wong and her colleagues analyzed worker’s compensation data in the
Province of Ontario to report on the relationship between policy changes and
the frequency of lost time claims. Dr. Quesnele and colleagues, in a paper
titled Changes in Vertebral Blood Flow following Various Head Positions and
Manipulation,
employed
sophisticated measurement techniques, and found no significant changes related
to head position and manipulation.

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Third
prize (US$5,000) went to Michael Meier PhD and colleagues from the School of
Chiropractic at the University of Zurich, Switzerland for a functional MRI
study showing changes in the brain in patients with chronic pain and titled Brain
Activation Induced by Spinal Movement: A Novel and Promising Method for Investigating
Neuroplastic Changes in Chronic Low-Back Pain.

The award
for the best new research from clinicians in private practice (US$3,000) also
went to Canadians, to Dr Rick Ruegg and colleagues for their work supported by
the Canadian Chiropractic Association and titled Evidence-based Guidelines
for the Chiropractic Treatment of Adults with Neck Pain.
All these award winning papers are
soon to be published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological
Therapeutics (JMPT).

In
presenting the prizes Dr Scott Haldeman, Chair of the WFC Research Council,
explained why these awards at the profession’s leading biennial original
research competition were now being named the NCMIC Louis Sportelli Research
Awards. Dr Sportelli, who has served as President of the NCMIC Group since
1999, has been a leading developer and supporter of chiropractic research for
the past 30 years. NCMIC is currently part-way through a 10 year agreement to
fund the WFC research awards through to 2019.

WFC
Congresses typically attract approximately 200 research submissions. For this
year’s Congress, 32 were selected for oral presentation and 90 for poster
presentation. Poster awards, which include first and second prizes and prizes
for best poster from each of the WFC’s seven world regions – Africa, Asia,
Eastern Mediterranean, Europe, Latin America, North America, and Pacific, are
generously sponsored by the International Board of Chiropractic Examiners
(IBCE).

First
poster prize (US$1,000) went to Dr Jennifer Bolton and colleagues from the UK (Evaluation
of a GP-referral multidisciplinary service for manual treatment of back and
neck pain: an update)
and second prize (US$750) to Dr Cynthia Peterson and colleagues from
Switzerland (Outcomes from MRI confirmed symptomatic cervical disc herniation
patients treated with high velocity, low amplitude, spinal manipulative
therapy: A prospective cohort study with 3 month follow-up).

FICS
Sports Chiropractic Awards, also handed out in Durban and generously sponsored
by Life University, included a first prize (US$5,000) to South African
researchers Dr Kyle Deutschmann, Dr Charmaine Korporaal and colleagues from the
Durban University of Technology for a study titled The Immediate Effect of
Sham Laser and Three Different Spinal Manipulative Protocols on Kicking Speed
in Soccer Players.
This
paper, being submitted for publication in Chiropractic and Manual Therapies,
reported improved kicking speed following spinal manipulative therapy.

For more
information on the World Federation of Chiropractic, please visit www.wfc.org.


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