Hands-On Therapies among Top-Rated Treatments for Back Pain

Consumer Report  

A study in the May 2009 issue of Consumer Reports shows that hands-on therapies were tops among treatments for relief of back pain. The study, which surveyed more than 14,000 consumers, was conducted by the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center.

According to the report, those involved in the survey tried a variety of different treatments and rated the treatments on how helpful and satisfied they were with the results. The report concluded that hands-on therapies were the top-rated.

The report states that, “eighty-eight percent of those who tried chiropractic manipulation said it helped a lot, and 59 percent were ‘completely’ or ‘very’ satisfied with their chiropractor.”1

1. http://pressroom.consumerreports.org/pressroom/2009/04/consumer-reports-survey-hands-on-therapies-among-top-rated-treatments-for-back-pain.html

Chiropractic for Acute and Chronic Pain

For Acute and Chronic Pain
“Patients with chronic low-back pain treated by chiropractors showed greater improvement and satisfaction at one month than patients treated by family physicians. Satisfaction scores were higher for chiropractic patients. A higher proportion of chiropractic patients (56 percent vs. 13 percent) reported that their low-back pain was better or much better, whereas nearly one-third of medical patients reported their low-back pain was worse or much worse.”
– Nyiendo et al (2000), Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics
In a Randomized controlled trial, 183 patients with neck pain were randomly allocated to manual therapy (spinal mobilization), physiotherapy (mainly exercise) or general practitioner care (counseling, education and drugs) in a 52-week study. The clinical outcomes measures showed that manual therapy resulted in faster recovery than physiotherapy and general practitioner care. Moreover, total costs of the manual therapy-treated patients were about one-third of the costs of physiotherapy or general practitioner care.
 -- Korthals-de Bos et al (2003), British Medical Journal
~http://www.acatoday.org/level3_css.cfm?T1ID=13&T2ID=61&T3ID=150

Patient satisfaction and Chiropractic

Patient Satisfaction

“Chiropractic patients were found to be more satisfied with their back care providers after four weeks of treatment than were medical patients. Results from observational studies suggested that back pain patients are more satisfied with chiropractic care than with medical care. Additionally, studies conclude that patients are more satisfied with chiropractic care than they were with physical therapy after six weeks.”

-- Hertzman-Miller et al (2002), American Journal of Public Health