Auburn Chiropractics Role in Back Pain Guidelines

Guidelines and recommendations for everything from how to correctly change 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 available for years, many listing non-surgical care including spinal manipulation as first line treatment. Just how well are those guidelines followed by involved healthcare practitioners, by back pain patients? Dr. Le's Chiropractic & Wellness, L.L.C. found these recent reports interesting and thought our Auburn 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 Auburn chiropractor is aware of the current guidelines to best help you, our Auburn 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) Dr. Le's Chiropractic & Wellness, L.L.C. utilizes the well-documented Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management which has a published algorithm of decision-making for patients who have pain below the knee and patients with pain that doesn’t extend 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 backing and proper clinical application build confidence that there is hope to our Auburn 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. Dr. Le's Chiropractic & Wellness, L.L.C. is one of those chiropractors. Beyond chiropractic, broad 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 documented that chiropractic care or OT/PT care for low back pain rose after clinical guidelines recommending their care were announced in 2016. Between 2002 and 2018, a bit less than a third of said adults with low back pain reported undergoing chiropractic and/or PT/OT with a rise to a third after the 2016 clinical guidelines were published. (3) This does demonstrate 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 almost 50% of them reporting that they’d had pain for over a year, and 75% reporting 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 offered 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 confident that they can help their back pain patients with their best interests in mind.

CONTACT Dr. Le's Chiropractic & Wellness, L.L.C.

Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Ted Siciliano on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he illustrates his use of The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management to relieve a patient dealing with back pain and foot drop.

Schedule your Auburn 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 navigate the way through the task!