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Wednesday, December 17, 1997

House calls

By GINNY MERRIAM/of the Missoulian

Chiropractor revives the "ancient" art
When Anuhea Meyers' 81-year-old father fell over ''like a plank'' on a grocery-shopping trip, she panicked.

''He fell so hard his glasses flew 12 feet away,'' the Missoula woman remembers. ''I thought for sure he had broken his back.''

He seemed all right, but Meyers wasn't sure. Both her parents, who live with her, have Alzheimer's disease; a trip to the doctor becomes a production. A trip to the emergency room seemed like overkill.

Then, inspiration: Meyers thought of the nice, young ''mobile chiropractor'' she met last summer in Baskin-Robbins. She had kept his card. Mark Wilson.

''He came after he was done at the office at six o'clock,'' Meyers said. ''I appreciated it so much. With two people with Alzheimer's here, I have to take them both to every doctor. ... I can't tell you how valuable that service is to me.''

Wilson, a 27-year-old triathlete and snowboarder who came to Missoula, fresh out of school, a year and a half ago as an ''extern'' at Butler Chiropractic Clinic, is modest about his mobile venture.

''I'll be honest,'' he said. ''It's not my idea, so I can't take credit for it.''

A chiropractor friend of Wilson's, Jeff Saad, has built up an all-mobile practice in Vail, Colo., where he treats mostly the well-to-do, seasonal, ski-injured population. Also, Wilson was aware that the medical profession in general is becoming more customer-service oriented, and he read a magazine article about other health-care professionals taking up the ancient art of house calls.

''More people are doing this now,'' he said. ''It's the old-time doctor going out and checking the child with the stethoscope.''

Then, he had an elderly patient who was doing very well under his office care but quit coming in because she just couldn't get out anymore for the trip to the office.

''That made me feel bad,'' Wilson said, ''so I thought, 'I'll go to her.' ''

So Wilson, armed with his doctor's bag full of diagnostic tools and a mobile chiropractic table in his red Toyota 4Runner, began working in a few calls around his busy office schedule. One of his next patients was Jane Petemeier of Kalispell, whose back went out while she was carrying her bags into a Missoula motel for an overnight stay.

''I looked up 'chiropractic' in the yellow pages and found what was to be a godsend,'' she wrote in a letter to the Missoulian. ''Dr. Mark Wilson provided 24-hour mobile chiropractic care seven days a week. He quickly came to my hotel room, took a history, performed an exam and adjusted my spine. Instantly I felt better and was able to stand upright again.''

The mobile arm of Wilson's practice is small - maybe two or three calls a month - but those who need it really need it. Mostly in these calls, he sees acute cases and elderly people, both categories of people who simply can't drive to the office.

''Mostly it's, 'I know I don't need an ambulance,' '' Wilson said. '' 'I'm not hospital material. But I'm in rough shape.' ''

The philosophy of treatment in these calls differs from the office approach. The foundation of Wilson's practice, in a regular setting, is looking beyond symptoms toward causes.

''In an acute situation, you need to address their pain,'' he said. ''Then, I treat the symptoms. When somebody's in sheer pain, I try to get them out of it.''

Then, he encourages the patient to come into the office to get to the bottom of it.

''Pain is a good thing,'' he said. ''Pain is an alarm, telling you there's fire going on. But you don't fix it by taking the alarm out. Throwing muscle relaxants and painkillers at it - that drives me crazy.''

''We work under the premise that the nervous system controls every cell, tissue and organ in the body. So we look to the spine.''

Dr. Jerome F. McAndrews, national spokesman for the American Chiropractic Association and former president of Palmer College of Chiropractic in Iowa, said Wilson is carrying on a chiropractic tradition. Chiropractic doctors have a long history of visiting people at home, partly because of the debilitating nature of low-back pain. McAdndrews' father, who was also a chiropractor, often headed out with the doctor's bag and portable table.

''He made a lot of house calls,'' McAndrews said in a telephone interview. ''There's nothing more terrible than a severe attack of lower back pain. ... My first patient was a six-foot-six truck driver who crawled into my office door, crying.''

He himself, he said, has made a lot of house calls in his career.

''They can't move,'' he said. ''If it's a bad attack, there's no choice but to go to their home.''

Most chiropractors, will, however, like Wilson, attempt to get the patient into the office for follow-up, he said, to take advantage of special equipment and x-rays.

That tradition is also present in Montana, said Mary Lou Garrett, executive director of the Montana Chiropractic Association in Helena.

''Most of them will do it,'' she said. ''Especially in rural Montana, you hear of it a lot. A farmer or rancher who's injured, they'll pack the table in the car and go out. I think they're pretty much a caring bunch.''

Wilson, who also talks at area schools and shows kids his whale vertebra - "To the kids, I'm the guy with the bone,'' he said - says his mobile practice is not his ''dream practice.'' Seeing patients in the office is still the top priority. But he's happy to go when he's needed.

Both situations give him the chance to educate his patients with the philosophy he developed through his schooling at Queens University in his native Ontario, Canada, and then Northwestern Chiropractic College in Minneapolis.

''People spend thousands of dollars on their teeth because we can see the 32 bones of the mouth,'' he said. ''We brush them constantly, go to the dentist. If people even spent half that time on their spines, the system that's the foundation of our body, we'd all be so much better off.''

Mark Wilson's chiropractic practice is at 1207 Mount Ave., 549-9100. He is visiting Sweden for the holidays and will return to the office Jan. 5.

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