Wellness Adjustments Reduce Back Pain
There has been many studies showing the effectiveness of chiropractic manipulation (adjustments) in decreasing pain and disability levels in neck and low back pain. Most of these research projects only have the patient receive treatment for a few months and then discontinue it. For years, chiropractic physicians have noticed that patients who routinely return for preventitive adjustments (we call them wellness adjustments at our office) tend to have less back pain and flare-ups. Most chiropractors left preventitive care decisions up to the individual patient — we didn’t have any concrete proof on its effectiveness — just clinical experience.
In January 2011, the journal Spine published a landmark study that studied the effectiveness on preventitive adjustments on chronic low back pain patients after completing a month of active care treatment. The results surprised everyone. There were 3 groups in the study: (Group #1) Didn’t receive any chiropractic manipulation, (Group #2) Received chiropractic manipulation for one month and (Group #3) Received chiropractic manipulation for one month and then preventitive adjustments every 2 weeks for 10 months. Although Group #2 had lower pain and disability scores than Group #1 (who didn’t receive treatment), Group #3 had the lowest pain and disability scores at the end of the 10 months when compared to the other 2 groups. What this research means is although chiropractic manipulation is effective for treating chronic low back pain as part of a short-term treatment plan, patients who receive ongoing preventitive chiropractic manipulation (wellness visits) experience better long-term results and lower pain/disability levels than those without treatment or only 1 month of chiropractic treatment.
So the next time you are being discharged from active treatment in our office and we offer the option of preventitive wellness visits, you might want to think strongly about taking us up on the offer. Not only have we our clinical experience telling us that patients tend to do better, but now have research that backs us as well (no pun intended!).