Medical and Chiropractic Study

Effect of Usual Medical Care plus Chiropractic Care vs Usual Medical Care Alone, on Pain and Disability among US Service Members with Low Back Pain.

This was a comparative clinical trial.

This study was published in the JAMA Network on May 18, 2018. It’s a study that compares service men and women, who have lower back pain, who receive only standard/usual medical care for their lower back issues (medications, self-care, PT and pain clinic referral) vs those who use these standard/usual medical treatments but added Chiropractic care (which included

Spinal manipulation in the lower back and other spinal regions, as well as additional therapeutic procedures such as rehabilitative exercise, cryotherapy superficial heat and other manual therapies).

What it showed, not surprisingly, was that those service members (between ages 18-50) who used both had better outcomes.

The reason I wanted to include this study for you to be aware of is because sometimes there’s a bit of “old school” bias from both Chiropractors and Medical Doctors that only one treatment is best! 

Those of you who see me for care know I really like using a collaborative approach to health care. For sure, there are plenty of times when only one of the treatment modalities (Chiro. Vs Med.) is necessary. But once a case becomes a bit complicated I think it’s always useful to take a multi-disciplinary approach. I’ve taken this approach for my entire career and it was nice to see a study that backs up my thinking!

And as we see with the current Opiod crisis perhaps some additional therapies, besides just medicine, for pain could be useful.