RSSWill You Choose Supermarket or Science for Back Pain?
Yet another review of back pain treatments and the evidence for and against many treatments has been published in The Spine Journal. Do we really need another one? Apparently we do because at this time chiropractors should be well integrated into the medical model, however, we are not.
Regarding back pain treatment the authors note, “The classical method of making health care decisions based on scientific evidence and expert consensus appears to have been replaced with a commercial and competitive model akin to shopping at a supermarket.”
“Only rarely do promotional material accurately present the scientific evidence, rarer still are there discussion of potential harms.”
Conclusions:
1. There are now more randomized controlled trials examining spinal manipulative therapy for back pain than any other intervention.
2. The overall evidence relative to efficacy and safety, “including recent high quality trials” support spinal manipulative therapy for the treatment of back pain.
3. “SMT is superior to usual medical care for patient improvement.”
4. For pain reduction, “High dose SMT is superior to low-dose SMT” in the short term.
5. SMT is superior to physical therapy and to home exercise in the long term.
Even more evidence to show chiropractic should be used as a first line treatment. Please call our office 415-566-7134 or contact us via our website Chiropractic San Francisco for a consultation.
