Research Update from NYCC
Its about time for an update from our research team at NYCC…
Drs. Cohen and Koo have been hard at work identifying trigger points in the body. And while each research project begins with a specific goal in mind, often that focus changes during the course of the project. While Drs. Cohen and Koo, along with professional consultants have been researching trigger points their research has developed. While trigger points are in the body, they’ve never been identified. And so far, we haven’t been able to identify them either, unfortunately. The current machine being used does not seem to have the imaging capabilities for this particular project, but we are still working hard!
However – the research is still incredibly productive. Drs. Cohen and Koo have been able to find out more about muscle response which is invaluable to the treatment of pain. The past six months have taught NimmoEd and the research team a lot. We will have the opportunity to author papers about the information we have found, and are still confident that a future project would provide an opportunity to identify a trigger point.
While this particular project is winding down, the next step will be to develop publications based off of what we did learn. Stay tuned for some specifics about the upcoming publications!
Know your treatment options…
There are the doctors who overprescribe an invasive back-pain therapy that, in studies, has not proved useful for many of the patients who get it. And there are the patients, living in an increasingly medicalized society, who want a quick fix for life’s aches and pains. – NY Times article, “Steroids and Back Pain”
An important component of Nimmo’s purpose is to make sure that patients are informed about medical treatments and how their choies affect their bodies. While we do believe that holisitc, natural remedies are the best, we agree that there is a place for a controlled prescription drug therapies. However, YOU NEED to have the information to make an informed choice – this is your body, your health.
Even if your first choice isn’t a Nimmo therapy, make sure you are informing yourself about your decisions. You only get one body…treat it right!
Another Generous Contribution…NimmoEd Awarded $4,000 from Speyer Foundation
This is a LONG overdue post, but still good news none the less!
First PNC Charitable Trust awarded us $10,000…which excited everyone at NimmoEd and provided much needed fuel for our fundraising campaign. Now…we can add to that with a generous $4,000 donation from the Speyer Foundation. The Speyer Foundation has been a supporter of NimmoEd in the past and their generosity for this project is wonderful – we are so grateful!
The more we can raise, the more research we can do…and that can only benefit the NIMMO-certified chiropractors and patients that rely upon NIMMOCare technique to safely and effectively relieve their pain.
As those of you who have been close to NimmoEd for awhile know, our research is unmatched – and now that we are spreading word within larger, National communities, we are excited to grow!
NimmoEd Awarded $10,000 PNC Charitable Trust Grant
We are so grateful and so thankful for the incredibly generous contribution from PNC Charitable Trust. In the highest expression of support that a Foundation can provide, NimmoEd has been awarded a $10,000 grant to support our current research endeavor: utilizing cutting-edge imagery to visualize a trigger point for the purpose of a treatment plan to provide pain relief.
To receive the grant, we had to go through the formal process that all orgnizations must go through and prove that the project we are currently undertaking is worthy of such generous support. As we are to all of our donors, we will be accountable to PNC to show how the funds were used and what we’ve learned from the research…which we would have compiled anyway to share with all of our supporters, donors, and patients.
Thank you again to PNC Charitable Trust for this support and to our wonderful research team for assembling such a compelling case. We hope that this initial grant will be a strong start for NimmoEd’s fundraising endeavors and provide confidence to our overall community that we have the right projects in place that they can be proud to support.
Current Research: Visualizing Trigger Points
As we described in our previous blog post, the current reserach being funded and conducted by NimmoEd and Dr. Jeffery Cohen has the goal of visually identifying a trigger point in the body. Right now, chiropractors rely upon the direction from patients to describe the location, type, and severity of pain. While each person knows their body the best, this is a very subjective and error-prone way to localize pain in the body. For example, just because there is pain in the shoulder, the trigger point that may need treated could be a few inches away from where the pain is felt. If a chiropractor could visualize the trigger point, they could devise a more thorough and accurate plan of treatment, allowing the patient much quicker recovery time.
How can a chiropractor visualize a trigger point? Well, that is part of the scientific experiment. The first step is to utilize equipment that is currently in use to visualize breast cancer tumors – the Supersonic Imagine Shearwave Elastography Machine. The Supersonic technology will allow Drs. Cohen and Koo to identify trigger points, and then the Drs. can see how those trigger points effect pain that patients are feeling.
This is extremely exciting research…and as with all scientific research we are not exactly sure where the discoveries are going to lead us, but we are excited to be on the journey.
Stay healthy!
Cutting-Edge Research
Over the past two years, NimmoEd has completed two scientific research projects and is currently in the middle of our cutting-edge third research project. To explain the research that we are currently undertaking, we’d like to explain the two prior projects first. All of the research that Dr. Jeffery Cohen conducts is in partnership with New York Chiropractic College (NYCC) and Dr. Terry Koo, a renowned reseracher at NYCC.
The first research project utilized a highly specialized Tissue Ultrasound Palpation System (TUPS) to objectively measure tissue elasticity, an indicator of pain and disability in muscle tissue. The research project was presented and awarded the first prize in the research basic science category at the Association of Chiropractic Colleges Educational and Research Agenda Conference in 2011. Follow-up research using the TUPS, the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the OWSWESTRY scale to measure pain and disability produced results showing that one treatment of NIMMOCARE reduces pain and disability far better than currently practiced methods for treating trigger points.
Drs. Cohen and Koo published their findings and presented their work at the World Federation of Chiropractic 11th Biennial Congress in Rio de Janiero. Their paper, “Immediate Effect of Nimmo Receptor Tonus Technique on Muscle Elasticity, Pain Perception, and Disability in Subjects with Chronic Low Back Pain” discusses the positive result of the Nimmo technique on pain.
NimmoEd has provided full funding for each research project, and the team members on the project are providing their services pro bono. Building upon these reserach projects, Dr. Cohen and Dr. Koo’s third reserach collaboration will focus on visually identifying trigger points in the body using the Supersonic Imagine Shearwave Elastography Machine. We will be regularly updating on the progress of the research…keep checking the blog for updates.
Stay healthy!
Eye-Opening Movie
This past week, in New York, there was a showing of the movie “Doctored”. This film takes a look at the “traditional” and non-traditional methods of patient care. More importantly, “Doctored” addresses the money-machine behind the medical industry – behind your health. Why are pharmaceuticals the first answer for most doctors? Why aren’t homeopathic remedies utilized more often? Why do natural remedies get pushed aside for lab-created pills? Who makes these decisions, and is our health in their best interest? These are questions we all deserved to have answered because we all deserve good health.
Follow the link for more information about “Doctored” and contact the producers to let them know that you want to see the movie in your area.
http://www.doctoredthemovie.com/
We deserve better from our medical providers…we deserve better from our medical industry and we need to start demanding and requiring that we, the patients, are first…not a company peddling pills.
Stay healthy! (And informed!)
The Importance of Fundraising
As a non-profit organization, NimmoEd relies upon the generosity of individuals and foundations to be able to advance our mission. We need you to keep our mission alive…we need you to keep training medical professionals…we need you to conduct ground-breaking research.
Why can’t we do this ourselves? We are often asked why we need individual support…can’t we just rely on university or government support?!?! Unfortunately not. Government funding of medical schools and residency programs is shrinking. The U.S. currently has a shortage of doctors; both primary care physicians and specialists. With residency programs capped, the provider gap is only going to increase – especially in rural areas.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-29/doctor-shortage-may-swell-to-130-000-with-u-s-cap.html
What does all this mean?
Considering that the provider shortage is due to a lack of government funding for residency programs, medical schools must take matters into their own hands and raise the money needed to educate and train qualified physicians. This includes chiropractic schools AND organizations like NimmoEd. In fact, it is more imperative for speciality programs like chiropractic. Chiropractic is not at the top of the funding list, and chiropractic schools receive very little in the way of government and corporate assistance. NimmoEd is no different. We work with chiropractic schools to provide training for chiropractors but we cannot rely upon the schools to support us – they barely receive support for their own programs! We must be a self-sustaining organization. Which means we rely upon your generosity and the generosity of foundations and community groups to advance healthy living.
We are
We are still here!
Greetings from our new website! You may have been wondering what NimmoEd has been up to for the past year…we know we haven’t sent any mailings and we didn’t do such a good job of keeping in touch. We are new and improved and you’ll be hearing a lot more from us…that’s a promise.
A major way that we will update you about what is going on is through this blog. We’ll be providing updates on our research (there has been a lot) and the projects that we want to be involved with while also providing commentary on the general happenings of the chiropractic and medical fields. You’ll also receive updates through the mail and to your email address, if you’ve shared that with us.
We’ve answered the question of how we will do a better job going forward…but we still need to update you on what we’ve been up to recently. Keeping in line with our mission, NimmoEd continued to educate chiropractors to make sure that trigger point therapies are available to anyone suffering from pain while also advancing the Nimmo technique through cutting edge and AWARD WINNING research…check out an upcoming blog post for details.
Stay healthy!