Patients Studied

93 chiropractic patients and 45 medical patients who sought care at a participating chiropractic or medical facility were followed for a month. They all had chronic (lasting longer than 3 months), recurrent (happening repeatedly over the course of a year) low back pain.

Treatments Received

chiropractic patients primarily received spinal manipulation and physical therapy modalities.
Medical patients mostly received anti-inflammatory agents.

Number of Treatments

chiropractic patients were seen on average 4 times and medical patients were seen 1 time.

Outcomes

Patients with chronic low back pain treated by chiropractors showed greater improvement and satisfaction at one month than patients treated by family physicians.

chiropractic patients showed improvement across all outcomes while medical patients showed minimal improvement.

 

	Chiropractic	Medical
Pain Severity	31%	6%
Functional Disability	29%	1%
Sensory Pain Quality	36%	29%
Affective Pain Quality	57%	26%

Satisfaction scores were higher for chiropractic patients.

A higher number of chiropractic patients - 56% of chiropractic patients vs. 13% of medical patients - reported their low back pain was better or much better. Nearly one-third of medical patients reported their low-back pain was worse or much worse. (1)

In another study of patients seeking care for their chronic low back pain from a chiropractic physician or a primary care medical physician reports that chiropractic care compared favorably to medical care with respect to long-term pain and disability outcomes. Medical and chiropractic care outcomes were similar in patients without leg pain and in patients with leg pain above the knee. However the researchers point out that an advantage was noted for chronic chiropractic patients with radiating pain below the knee. A greater proportion of chiropractic patients were satisfied with all aspects of their care. (2)