Groton Chiropractics Role in Back Pain Guidelines
Guidelines and recommendations for everything from how to correctly change a light bulb to when to do back surgery fill our daily lives. Guidelines are valued by people confronting a new task or a new pain for the first time. Guidelines for the care of back pain have been circulated for years, many listing non-surgical care including spinal manipulation as first line treatment. Just how well are those guidelines followed by relevant healthcare providers, by back pain patients? Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office found these newly published reports attention-getting and thought our Groton chiropractic patients would, too. We can all use them to design and go along with a guideline-based treatment plan.
BACK PAIN TREATMENT GUIDELINES
Your Groton chiropractor is aware of the current guidelines to best help you, our Groton back pain patient. Back in 2009, the American College of Physicians added spinal manipulation to its guidelines’ recommendations of suitable spinal pain care options. (1) Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office uses the well-documented Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management which has a published algorithm of decision-making for patients suffering pain below the knee and patients with pain that doesn’t extend below the knee with a goal of 50% improvement in a month of care. These guidelines came out in 1996 and have been tested in clinic-based data collections in the years since. (2) Such guidelines with research support and proper clinical application soothe our Groton chiropractic patients!
ARE GUIDELINES BEING FOLLOWED?
We hope so! Nearly 64% of chiropractors say they use (Cox®) flexion distraction with their spine pain patients and have the algorithm/guideline accessible to them. Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office is one of those chiropractors. Beyond chiropractic, broad guidelines for back pain care are also accessible. Are they followed? A recent review of chiropractic and OT/PT use among 146,087 adults with low back pain in the past 3 months found that chiropractic care or OT/PT care for low back pain increased after clinical guidelines recommending their care were announced in 2016. Between 2002 and 2018, a bit less than a third of those adults with low back pain reported undergoing chiropractic and/or PT/OT with a rise to a third after the 2016 clinical guidelines were published. (3) This does demonstrate that guidelines assist with treatment direction but are not always followed. In Denmark where guidelines for low back pain care are outlined for primary care before being referred found that 33% of patients had not undergone an adequate course of treatment in primary care before being referred. The patients were on average 53 years old with nearly 50% of them saying that they’d had pain for more than a year, and 75% saying that they experienced pain below the knee. (4) Struggles in the healthcare system to abide by guidelines are seemingly global.
CHIROPRACTIC’S ROLE
A group of chiropractic leaders gathered their ideas on the role of the chiropractor in his/her own practice, with his/her own patients, within the healthcare community, and within society for healthcare. Very interesting! Independently, chiropractors reported themselves as capable and well-educated spine and musculoskeletal care experts who offered evidence-based care based on the latest research, clinical expertise, and patient values. They provided patient-centered care that spreads to cooperating with other healthcare providers in the best interests of the patient. (5) Using guidelines, chiropractors are sure that they can assist their back pain patients with their best interests in mind.
CONTACT Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Ted Siciliano on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he illustrates his use of The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management to help a patient dealing with back pain and foot drop.
Schedule your Groton chiropractic appointment now. Facing a serious episode of back pain is certainly not comparable to changing a light bulb for the first time, but it’s comforting to know that there are available to navigate the way through the task!
