Chiropractic Neck Manipulation and Cervical Artery Dissections / Strokes: The Evidence
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Cervical artery neck dissections are a known though uncommon complication of neck manipulation or rapid rotational force applied to the neck, particularly in an extended position.
Cervical artery dissections occur in an estimated 1:20,000 neck manipulations but there are LOTS of manipulations performed each day .
Yet despite this evidence, chiropractors continue to practice rapid neck manipulation for the “neck cracking” effect.
I have received a lot of push back over the suggestion to never allow a chiropractor to manipulate your neck. So let’s look over the evidence.
This has been discussed in the the scientific literature since the 1990s, so here’s some of the evidence:
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/SVIN.01.suppl_1.000200
https://www.jvascsurg.org/article/0741-5214(91)70095-O/fulltext
A couple quotes from this article: “Although a link between chiropractic and VAD has been clearly established a population at particular risk has not been identified.”
“In particular the vertebral artery is sus- ceptible to injury due to its exposed position as it…
