Fernandina Beach Chiropractics Role in Back Pain Guidelines
Guidelines and recommendations for so many things from how to correctly replace a light bulb to appropriately decide on whether to do back surgery pervade our world. Guidelines are valued by people confronting a new challenge or a new health condition for the first time. Guidelines for the care of back pain have been published 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 sufferers? Amelia Chiropractic Clinic found these recent reports attention-getting and thought our Fernandina Beach chiropractic patients would, also. We can all use them to design and follow a guideline-based treatment plan.
BACK PAIN TREATMENT GUIDELINES
Your Fernandina Beach chiropractor keeps abreast of the current guidelines to best help you, our Fernandina Beach back pain patient. Back in 2009, the American College of Physicians added spinal manipulation to its guidelines’ recommendations of suitable spinal pain care options. (1) Amelia Chiropractic Clinic utilizes the well-documented Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management which has a published algorithm of decision-making for patients with pain below the knee and patients who experience pain that does not go below the knee with a goal of 50% improvement in 30 days or so 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 support and proper clinical application build confidence that there is hope to our Fernandina Beach 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. Amelia Chiropractic Clinic 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 introduced in 2016. Between 2002 and 2018, a little less than a third of those adults with low back pain reported getting chiropractic and/or PT/OT with a rise to a third after the 2016 clinical guidelines were released. (3) This does demonstrate that guidelines help with treatment direction but are not always followed. In Denmark where guidelines for low back pain care are defined for primary care before being referred 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 almost 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 follow 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 reported themselves as capable and well-educated spine and musculoskeletal care experts who delivered evidence-based care founded on the current research, clinical expertise, and patient values. They delivered patient-centered care that spreads 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 those patient’s best interests in mind.
CONTACT Amelia Chiropractic Clinic
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 help a patient dealing with back pain and foot drop.
Schedule your Fernandina Beach chiropractic appointment soon. Facing a serious episode of back pain is certainly not equivalent to changing a light bulb for the first time, but it is comforting to know that there are published guidelines to best manage each task!
