Plainville Chiropractics Role in Back Pain Guidelines
Guidelines and recommendations for so many things from how to properly change a light bulb to when to do back surgery pervade our daily lives. Guidelines are valued by people confronting a new challenge or a new pain for the first time. Guidelines for the care of back pain have been available through the years, many citing non-surgical care including spinal manipulation as first line treatment. Just how well are those guidelines followed by involved healthcare providers, by back pain sufferers? Layden Chiropractic found these recent reports attention-getting and thought our Plainville chiropractic patients would, also. We can all use them to design and go along with a guideline-based treatment plan.
BACK PAIN TREATMENT GUIDELINES
Your Plainville chiropractor is aware of the current guidelines to best assist you, our Plainville back pain patient. Back in 2009, the American College of Physicians listed spinal manipulation in its guidelines’ recommendations of appropriate spinal pain care options. (1) Layden Chiropractic 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 who experience pain that doesn’t extend below the knee with a goal of 50% improvement in a month of care. These guidelines were released in 1996 and have been tested in clinic-based data collections in the years since. (2) Such guidelines with research backing and proper clinical application help our Plainville 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. Layden Chiropractic is one of those chiropractors. Beyond chiropractic, general guidelines for back pain care are also accessible. Are they followed? A newly completed 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 rose after clinical guidelines recommending their care were introduced in 2016. Between 2002 and 2018, a little less than a third of said adults with low back pain said that they were getting chiropractic and/or PT/OT with a rise to a third after the 2016 clinical guidelines were published. (3) This does show that guidelines help with treatment direction but are not always followed. In Denmark where guidelines for low back pain care are charted for primary care before referral found that 33% of patients had not gone through an adequate course of treatment in primary care before referral. The patients were on average 53 years old with nearly 50% of them saying that they experienced pain for over 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 thoughts 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! Individually, chiropractors reported themselves as experienced and well-educated spine and musculoskeletal care experts who provided evidence-based care based on the current research, clinical expertise, and patient values. They delivered patient-centered care that spreads to cooperating with other healthcare providers in the best interests of the patient. (5) Using guidelines, chiropractors are confident that they can assist their back pain patients with their best interests in mind.
CONTACT Layden Chiropractic
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Ted Siciliano on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he illustrates how he used The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management to relieve a patient dealing with back pain and foot drop.
Schedule your Plainville chiropractic appointment soon. Facing a serious episode of back pain is certainly not comparable to changing a light bulb for the first time, but it is comforting to know that there are published guidelines to properly manage each task!
