Chiropractic Superior for Spinal Pain
Chiropractic care was significantly better than a sham treatment in alleviating spinal pain for patients in a new study.
Although chiropractic is widely used to treat spinal pain, ongoing research seeks to identify and quantify its effectiveness.
In a recent study published in the journal Spine, researchers compared chiropractic care to a sham intervention for spinal pain. The study included 183 participants with spinal pain who were randomly assigned to receive either chiropractic or a sham intervention for two weeks. The chiropractic patients had better improvements in pain and physical function than the control group. They were more likely to have global improvements, with 48% demonstrating global improvements, compared to 24% of the control group. The majority of chiropractic patients (78%) reported satisfaction with their treatment, compared to just 56% of the control group. The researchers concluded that chiropractic care was superior to the sham intervention.
This is simply the latest study demonstrating the effectiveness of chiropractic care for spinal pain. While this study only compared chiropractic to a sham intervention, other research comparing chiropractic to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, epidural steroid injections, and traditional medical care, has also confirmed the effectiveness of chiropractic.
Reference
Walker B, et al. Short term use of chiropractic care for spinal pain: a randomised controlled trial. Spine 2013. [ E-pub ahead of print].
