Research Confirms Chiropractic and Medical Treatment Work Well with One Another

In a report published by the journal Spine investigators¹ looked at a group of active-duty military personnel between the ages of 18 and 35 who reported both acute pain and restricted function due to back symptoms. Some of the study participants received treatment via standard medical care, while the rest were given chiropractic adjustments together with regular medical care, as the authors wanted to determine which group fared better.

Researchers discovered that the group that got standard medical care combined with chiropractic scored "significantly better" than the patients who got medical care alone; 73% reported positive benefits in comparison to just 17 percent of the medical treatment only group who indicated the same amount of improvement. This was true regarding both pain and level of function at two and four weeks.

Thus, incorporating these two forms of care can greatly benefit you--the patient--offering advantages when compared to medical care alone. However, while chiropractic care and medical approaches can work alongside each other, chiropractic offers some unique advantages over medical treatment.

Where Chiropractic Wins

Although it might seem as if each approach plays a 50-50 role, there is one major advantage that chiropractic care has over medical treatment and that is in patient satisfaction. In fact, a study from UCLA² that was published in the American Journal of Public Health found that, on average, chiropractic patients are generally more satisfied with their recovery than people undergoing medical care.

According to the researchers, the main factors that patients liked over medical treatment were "self-care advice and explanation of treatment." This isn't unexpected, as chiropractors typically spend much more time advising their patients as to how they can better their health on their own, as well as explaining more carefully what to expect from chiropractic.

Chiropractic Care Offers a Holistic Approach

Certainly, the strategies associated with chiropractic are quite different than those provided with medical treatment, but a great deal of the distinction is the fact that chiropractic is a holistic approach to health and wellness. Instead of focusing on just relieving the symptoms, chiropractic care involves finding the root cause of your pain, which often means greater improvement as you are tackling the problem at its source.

Furthermore, while medication is sometimes helpful for treating certain conditions, many health issues respond well to natural forms of treatment like chiropractic. This means fewer negative side effects from prescriptions and lasting recovery.

You don't have to struggle with back pain or other health issues. Give our Waldorf, MD clinic a call today at (301) 645-8898. We'll do everything we can to help you get and continue to be free from back pain.

References

Goertz CM, Long CR, Hondras MA, Petri R, Delgado R, Lawrence DJ, Owens EF, Meeker WC. Adding chiropractic manipulative therapy to standard medical care for patients with acute low back pain: results of a pragmatic randomized comparative effectiveness study. Spine 2013;38(8):627-634.

Hertzman-Miller RP1, Morgenstern H, Hurwitz EL, Yu F, Adams AH, Harber P, Kominski GF. Comparing the satisfaction of low back pain patients randomized to receive medical or chiropractic care: results from the UCLA low-back pain study. American Journal of Public Health 2002;92(10):1628-1633.