Toronto 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 daily lives. 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 recommending non-surgical care including spinal manipulation as first line treatment. Just how well are those guidelines followed by relevant healthcare providers, by back pain sufferers? Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre found these recent reports interesting and thought our Toronto chiropractic patients would, also. We can all use them to create and go along with a guideline-based treatment plan.
BACK PAIN TREATMENT GUIDELINES
Your Toronto chiropractor keeps abreast of the current guidelines to best help you, our Toronto back pain patient. Back in 2009, the American College of Physicians listed spinal manipulation in its guidelines’ recommendations of appropriate spinal pain care choices. (1) Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre 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 with 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 through the years. (2) Such guidelines with research support and proper clinical application help our Toronto 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 available to them. Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre is one of those chiropractors. Beyond chiropractic, broad 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 increased after clinical guidelines recommending their care were introduced in 2016. Between 2002 and 2018, a little less than a third of said adults with low back pain reported getting chiropractic and/or PT/OT with a rise to a third after the 2016 clinical guidelines were published. (3) This does show that guidelines help with treatment direction 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 undergone an adequate course of treatment in primary care before referral. The patients were on average 53 years old with nearly 50% of them reporting that they 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 reported themselves as competent and well-educated spine and musculoskeletal care experts who delivered 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 in the best interests of the patient. (5) Using guidelines, chiropractors are sure that they can help their back pain patients with their best interests in mind.
CONTACT Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Ted Siciliano on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he illustrates how he used The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management to relieve a patient dealing with back pain and foot drop.
Schedule your Toronto chiropractic appointment now. Facing a serious episode of back pain is certainly not comparable to changing a light bulb for the first time, but it is comforting to know that there are available to best manage each task!
