• Beck R
• Sexton S
• Haavik Taylor H

• Autonomic Nervous System
• Blood Pressure
• Blood Pressure Determination
• Manipulation, Chiropractic

Methods: Participants included 70 patients attending the New Zealand College of Chiropractic Student Health Centre. Blood pressure was recorded by a blinded examiner before and after either a single Diversified type chiropractic adjustment or an adjustment set-up with no thrust. Participants were randomly allocated to groups. Each trial was allocated to a subgroup based on the spinal region involved. Some participants were involved in more than one trial session with a total of 118 trials included in the study.

Results: Multifactorial repeated measures ANOVA assessing for any effect from the adjustment revealed a significant overall interactive effect for the factors TIME (pre / post) and GROUP (adjustment / control) [F (1,103)=4.23, p=0.042] for systolic blood pressure. Further analysis of the adjustment group revealed a significant overall effect [F (1,49)=10.89, p=0.002] with systolic blood pressure decreasing significantly (-3.9 +/- 10.3mmHg) following an adjustment. No other significant differences were found in the adjustment or control groups.

Conclusion: An adjustment to any segment in the spine resulted in a statistically significant average decrease in systolic blood pressure of 3.9 mmHg. The direction of blood pressure change that was observed was not dependent on the region of the spine adjusted. However, visual analysis suggests cervical and lumbopelvic adjustments had a greater influence on systolic blood pressure than thoracic adjustments. Diastolic blood pressure remained relatively constant. Average changes in blood pressure were unlikely to be clinically significant. However, in individual participants some blood pressure changes were considered to be clinically relevant following an adjustment.

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