A Recent Study Finds The Type Of Treatment Provided By Chiropractors For Low Back Pain Reduces Pain, Improves Function, and Is Remarkably Safe.

A 2017 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Paige (and others), completed a systematic review of randomized controlled trials on the effectiveness and harms of Spinal Manipulative Therapy for acute low back pain.

The researchers found that chiropractic adjustments (manipulative therapy) was significantly associated with pain relief and improved function… ability to perform day to day tasks.

Interestingly, even though Chiropractors provide the majority of this type of treatment and therefore have greater experience with it, several of the studies cited here used other practitioners doing the manipulation including MDs, Osteopaths, and PTs.

The overwhelming number of these studies showed no adverse events with manipulation, even when done by an MD, osteopath, or PT.

Minor other ‘side effects‘ in a few studies primarily reported short term pain/soreness and stiffness.

Interestingly, in a study cited the side effects were less than those reported by people taking NSAIDs pain relievers (motrin, naproxen, celebrex, etc are NSAIDs).

The authors conclude that among patients with acute low back pain, spinal manipulative therapy was associated with improvement in pain and better function at up to 6 weeks (limitation of studies).

Reference:
Association Of Spinal Manipulative Therapy With Clinical Benefit And Harm For Acute Low Back Pain: Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis
Journal of the American Medical Association. Paige et al. (2017)

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5470352/