Ashburn and Herndon Chiropractics Role in Back Pain Guidelines
Guidelines and recommendations for everything from how to properly change a light bulb to appropriately decide on whether to do back surgery pervade our daily lives. Guidelines are valued by people facing 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 listing 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? Poulin Chiropractic of Herndon and Ashburn found these recent reports interesting and thought our Ashburn and Herndon chiropractic patients would, too. We can all use them to create and go along with a guideline-based treatment plan.
BACK PAIN TREATMENT GUIDELINES
Your Ashburn and Herndon chiropractor keeps abreast of the current guidelines to best assist you, our Ashburn and Herndon back pain patient. Back in 2009, the American College of Physicians listed spinal manipulation in its guidelines’ recommendations of suitable spinal pain care choices. (1) Poulin Chiropractic of Herndon and Ashburn 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 who have pain that does not go below the knee with a goal of 50% improvement in a month 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 backing and proper clinical application help our Ashburn and Herndon 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. Poulin Chiropractic of Herndon and Ashburn is one of those chiropractors. Beyond chiropractic, general guidelines for back pain care are also accessible. 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 found 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 said that they were undergoing chiropractic and/or PT/OT with an increase to a third after the 2016 clinical guidelines were published. (3) This does show that guidelines assist with treatment planning but are not always followed. In Denmark where guidelines for low back pain care are outlined for primary care before being referred found that 33% of patients had not gone through an adequate course of treatment in primary care before being referred. The patients were on average 53 years old with nearly 50% of them reporting that they had pain for over a year, and 75% reporting 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 assembled 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! Individually, chiropractors reported themselves as capable and well-educated spine and musculoskeletal care experts who provided evidence-based care founded on the current research, clinical expertise, and patient values. They delivered 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 those patient’s best interests in mind.
CONTACT Poulin Chiropractic of Herndon and Ashburn
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 help a patient dealing with back pain and foot drop.
Make your Ashburn and Herndon chiropractic appointment today. 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!
