New Spine Journal Study Shows the Benefit of Chiropractic Spinal Maintenance Therapy

Here is the abstract of the first ever randomized study on manipulation maintenance therapy for chronic low back disorders that will be published in the prestigious Spine Journal. The maintenance group actually showed even further improvement after the 10 once per month treatments! This is a very important study because of the benefit to patients and because chiropractic maintenance treatment is controversial among many non chiropractic providers and stakeholders. Of course further future randomized trials will be helpful to more fully confirm the benefit.

Here is a link the the article: "Does maintained Spinal manipulation therapy for chronic non-specific low back pain result in better long term outcome?"

MD's Don't Follow Knee Osteoarthritis Guidelines

MD's not following current evidence based guidelines for management of back and joint disorders is unfortunately very common. Here is another study showing that MD's rely mostly on drugs to treat symptoms and a non evidence based surgery, rather than encouraging research validated exercise and weight loss. The authors note that current medical treatment is contributing to the skyrocketing cost of treating knee OA.

Docs Don't Follow OA Guidelines

Common pain meds can put you in a world of hurt

This is a very good article from last month's edition of Runners World magazine. It reviews our current knowledge of the damaging effects to the kidneys, G.I. tract, blood pressure, and sodium levels of taking ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatories which is greatly increased during exercise. It also reviews the damaging effect on the liver from acetaminophen (Tylenol), the inhibition of healing secondary to anti-inflammatories, and that anti-inflammatories do not decrease pain during exercise and actually increase inflammation during exercise. Please see link below for the article.

The Pill Problem

The right drug can relieve pain and discomfort—or put you in a world of hurt.

Why Health Care Costs for LBP Are So High Initiating care with an MD for back pain results in much higher health care costs than going to a DC, says

This is another is a long list of studies showing that chiropractic care of low back pain is significantly more cost effective than medical care. The study is from the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics and entitled "Cost of Care for Common Back Pain Conditions Initiated With Chiropractic Doctor vs. Medical Doctor / Doctor of Osteopathy as First Physician." This is a retrospective claims review of medium and large insurance plans of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee. It showed 40% less cost for chiropractic initiated care compared to MD initiated care and with risk adjusting still showed a 20% less cost.

Decreased cost with chiropractic care was seen in many of the previous studies even though non of them included all the indirect costs which constitute a majority of the medical costs.

Why Health Care Costs for LBP Are So High