Chiropractic practice in military and veterans health care: The state of the literature.

OBJECTIVE To summarize scholarly literature that describes practice, utilization, and/or policy of chiropractic services within international active duty and/or veteran health care environments. DATA SOURCES PubMed, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and the Index to Chiropractic Literature were searched from their starting dates through June 2009. REVIEW METHODS All authors independently reviewed each of the articles to verify that each met the inclusion criteria. Citations of included papers and other pertinent findings were logged in a summary table. RESULTS Thirteen articles were included in this study. Integration of chiropractic care into military or veteran health care systems has been described in 3 systems: the United States Department of Defense, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Canadian Forces. CONCLUSION Chiropractic services seem to be included successfully within military and veteran health care facilities. However, there is a great need for additional written evaluation of the processes, policies, practices, and effectiveness of chiropractic services in these environments.