Toronto Chiropractic and Back Pain Relief Expectations via Surgical or Conservative Care
What do you expect from your chiropractic care of Toronto back pain? That is a pivotal question. Research is reporting that that questions of expectations has a role in back pain treatment outcome be the treatment surgical or conservative. Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre aspires to listen to you and your expectations of our Toronto back pain treatment and present the outcomes of our treatment documented in practice and in research.
INFLUENTIAL EXPECTATIONS FOR BACK SURGERY OUTCOMES
A recent research project examined patient and surgeon expectations of back surgery. Patients expected full relief and improvement of their back pain after lumbar spine surgery. Surgeons expected improvement that varied from a little to a lot depending on the patient and his/her specific condition. Whose expectations were met? The surgeons’ expectations. A couple years after the back surgery, the patient-reported outcomes met the surgeon’s expectations. The researchers stressed that effective communication about expectations may well advance better outcomes. (1) That’s why Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre spends time with each Toronto back pain patient at the beginning of care, making sure the source of pain and its treatment plan are well-described. If not, tell us!
AN ACCEPTABLE SYMPTOM STATE
If original patient expectations are not met with back surgery, what is an “acceptable symptom state” for that back pain patient? What can he/she live with? For patients with chronic non-specific low back pain (with or without active discopathy), 54% reported having an acceptable symptom state at 1 month of care. Specifically, patient-reported acceptable symptoms involved these: 47.5 for lumbar pain, 30.5 for radicular pain, 39.3 for disability, 10.0 for anxiety, and 6.7 for depression. (2) Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre realizes no pain is the preferred state and is prepared to discuss with our Toronto chiropractic patients their options and possible outcomes.
DECIDING ON TREATMENT OPTIONS
Deciding whether to have back surgery is a big decision. Evidence-based medicine views the patient as being the center of care. What is the patient perspective of this care? How is the patient perspective considered in treatment planning and decision making among available options? A new paper pointed out that the patient’s social, psychological, and other non-clinical characteristics must be considered in planning care. (3) One factor in the back-surgery decision that reportedly influences the decision and the outcome expectation is opioid use. Lower dose and shorter-time-taking opioid use patients expected more complete improvement compared with non-users. They also had higher expectations of positive outcome than higher-dose opioid patients. (4) For many patients, the prospect of work is a light at the end of the tunnel which is encouraging according to this new report on how back pain patient recovery expectations influence clinical outcomes. A review of 60 studies found that a patient’s recovery expectations are probably strongly associated with future work participation. (5) Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre applies effective, nonsurgical care of back pain to meet patient expectations once the research on outcomes for other back pain sufferers is presented and understood. Toronto chiropractic care keeps the back pain patient at its center.
CONTACT Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre
Check out this PODCAST with Dr. Anthony Galante on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he explained how Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management and chiropractic treatment helped manage back pain for a patient who was adamant about not wanting back surgery.
Make your next Toronto chiropractic visit today. Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre invites you to ponder and answer the question of your expectations for our treatment so that we can both be satisfied with the outcome!
