Can someone explain to me how chiropractic spinal manipulation can affect the hearing or vision of patients?

I am a graduate student with years of educational experience in clinical anatomy and physiology, and I do not see the basis for these chiropractic theories. It needs clarification

your spinal cord (which controls most body movements) is part of your nervous system, the ventral side [stomach] taking care of most of your motor functions whereas the dorsal side [back] takes care of sensory fuctions. Hearing and sight fall in to the latter catagory. Different parts of your spine are associated with different parts of your body, so manipulating one part of the spine affects its corresponding area (called dermatomes). Also, there is the tectum which controls visual and auditory inputs. This has nuclei that extend into the spinal column which might explain why chiropractic spinal manipulation affects things like sight and hearing. Whether or not they're all quacks I have no idea but thats my attempt at an explanation :)

In my opinion chiropractors are quacks.. for more reasons than I'll go into and list here.
However I did recently read an article about neck manipulation. Now I know you said spine and perhaps you already know this. However, neck manipulation can damage the sensitive arteries in the neck and it's estimated that more than a thousand strokes per year are directly caused by neck manipulation from chiropractors. So.. anything that can interfere with the blood flow so drastically I would expect could cause some serious perceived hearing and visual affects. Of course this is the neck and not the spine so perhaps this doesn't answer your question at all.

I dont either.

Chiropractics is a joke.

They make the alternative health community look like fools and many dont like them.

None of it makes any sense in the slightest.

A good run/swim or an hour of yoga/tai chi will do far more for you than a visit to a stupid chiropractor :/

It will also be better for the wallet too : )

The long answer is that the most orthodox chiropractors don't claim to do therapeutics鈥攖hey merely facilitate the smooth flow of the "Innate Intelligence/Force" throughout the body, with the gatekeeper being the spine. Keep the spine healthily aligned and the "Innate Intelligence" will heal the body by itself. Direct nerve contact is irrelevant.

The short answer is that they're all quacks.

Chiropractice neck manipulation can adversely affect hearing and vision due to stretching or splitting of the vertebral artery at the base of the skull.

Last year I actually had a patient who sufferered blurred near vision and loss of accommodation for about 3 months after a neck manipulation. She was lucky, there have been numerous reports of stroke and death from neck manipulation.