That’s exactly what Dr. Sean Riley and the Tulsa Spine and Rehab staff were asked to provide recently. A unique situation – try and figure out how chiropractic service line fits in at a cancer hospital. The hospital has an integrated system with multiple types of physicians – medical oncologists, radiologists, and surgeons – all the doctors you would need to manage a cancer patient under one roof.
Along side them, they offer ancillary services and elective type services such as chiropractic, acupuncture and physical therapy. Their whole philosophy is to get these like minded providers under one roof that are able to have an open line of communication and truly to provide a patient with comprehensive, high standard of care.
Normally, in the clinic the guy or gal being seen will have neck or low back pain – and they are unhappy about it. But with cancer patients– people are happy. They need care, they need treatment – they are there for life-threatening illnesses and disease and they’re just happy that they are provided a service that’s related to their neck or low back.
When we think of a chiropractor, we think of the popping and cracking. Obviously, we are limited to what we can do manually. We utilize a lot of soft tissue techniques because we want to be very aware obviously of their cancer and where the cancer might be and what the contrary indications are and some things that we should stay away from.
There’s a fine line there. I’m not able to do as much as I would in my clinic related to some of the tools I have. But we’re able to use some gentle, safe and effective procedures and techniques on these patients to give them some relief and at the end of the day, they are dealing with some really, really nasty things. And if I’m there and I can help them out a little bit some neck and low back pain and make them feel a little bit better, I feel like I’ve done my job.
To contact Dr. Riley and his team of experts at Tulsa Spine and Rehab, call (918) 743-3737 or send them an email.
