Juneau Chiropractics Role in Back Pain Guidelines
Guidelines and recommendations for so many things from how to properly replace a light bulb to when to do back surgery fill our world. Guidelines are appreciated by people facing a new challenge or a new pain for the first time. Guidelines for the care of back pain have been issued through the years, many citing non-surgical care including spinal manipulation as first line treatment. Just how well are those guidelines followed by relevant healthcare practitioners, by back pain patients? Aurora Chiropractic Center found these recent reports interesting and thought our Juneau chiropractic patients would, too. We can all use them to create and follow a guideline-based treatment plan.
BACK PAIN TREATMENT GUIDELINES
Your Juneau chiropractor keeps abreast of the current guidelines to best help you, our Juneau back pain patient. Back in 2009, the American College of Physicians listed spinal manipulation in its guidelines’ recommendations of suitable spinal pain care choices. (1) Aurora Chiropractic Center utilizes 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 go 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 soothe our Juneau 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. Aurora Chiropractic Center is one of those chiropractors. Beyond chiropractic, general guidelines for back pain care are available. 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 documented that chiropractic care or OT/PT care for low back pain rose after clinical guidelines recommending their care were announced in 2016. Between 2002 and 2018, a little less than a third of those adults with low back pain reported undergoing chiropractic and/or PT/OT with an increase to a third after the 2016 clinical guidelines were published. (3) This does demonstrate that guidelines assist with treatment planning but are not always followed. In Denmark where guidelines for low back pain care are documented for primary care before referral found that 33% of patients had not gone through 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 over a year, and 75% saying that they had 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 compiled 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 described themselves as competent and well-educated spine and musculoskeletal care experts who offered evidence-based care based on the current research, clinical expertise, and patient values. They provided patient-centered care that extends to cooperating with other healthcare providers with the best interest of the patient in mind. (5) Using guidelines, chiropractors are sure that they can help their back pain patients with their best interests in mind.
CONTACT Aurora Chiropractic Center
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Ted Siciliano on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he describes his use of The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management to relieve a patient dealing with back pain and foot drop.
Schedule your Juneau chiropractic appointment soon. Facing a serious bout 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 best manage each task!
