Due to the fact that so many work days are lost down to lower right back pain, there will always continue to be on-going research into how best to treat/relieve symptoms for the millions of sufferers. Chiropractic doctors are one of the many suggested treatments and a growing list of research studies show that the services afforded by chiropractic physicians are found to be both safe and effective. The following are brief excerpts and summaries from some of the more recent studies. The evidence appears to strongly support the natural, whole-body and cost-effective approaches of chiropractic care for a variety of conditions, including chronic back pain.
For Acute and Chronic Low Back Pain:
“Many treatments are available for low back pain. Often exercises and physical therapy can help. Some people benefit from chiropractic therapy or acupuncture.”
–Goodman et al. (2013), Journal of the American Medical Association
“[Chiropractic Manipulative Therapy] in conjunction with [standard medical care] offers a significant advantage for decreasing pain and improving physical functioning when compared with only standard care, for men and women between 18 and 35 years of age with acute low back pain.”
–Goertz et al. (2013), Spine
In a Randomized controlled trial, 183 patients with neck pain were randomly allocated to manual therapy (spinal mobilization), physiotherapy (mainly exercise) or general practitioner care (counseling, education and drugs) in a 52-week study. The clinical outcomes measures showed that manual therapy resulted in faster recovery than physiotherapy and general practitioner care. Moreover, total costs of the manual therapy-treated patients were about one-third of the costs of physiotherapy or general practitioner care.
— Korthals-de Bos et al (2003), British Medical Journal
“Patients with chronic low-back pain treated by chiropractors showed greater improvement and satisfaction at one month than patients treated by family physicians. Satisfaction scores were higher for chiropractic patients. A higher proportion of chiropractic patients (56 per cent vs. 13 per cent) reported that their low-back pain was better or much better, whereas nearly one-third of medical patients reported their low-back pain was worse or much worse.”
– Nyiendo et al (2000), Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics
The goals of research is to:
- Understand the many factors which may cause back pain.
- Identify different ways to help prevent the onset of back pain.
- Improve surgical and nonsurgical treatments for back pain.
- Prevent disability in people who suffer from back pain.