Background: Chronic Low Back Pain (cLBP) costs the United States over $100 billion annually.
Primary Study Objective: This study reports pain intensity, general health and functional disability outcomes after 4-weeks of chiropractic care for cLBP patients.
Methods/Design: A prospective case series, nonrandomized, non-controlled, practice-based study.
Setting: 22 private chiropractic practices in the US.
Subjects: 131 adult cLBP patients, 68 males (53.5%), mean age of 46.75 with chief complaints of cLBP (LBP ≥ 3 months) with mean duration of 11 years. Intervention: Each patient received 6 office visits over a 4-week period with doctors following Directional Non-Force Technique (DNFT) chiropractic protocols.
Outcome Measures: The Dartmouth COOP charts (general health), Modified Oswestry Disability Questionnaire (MODQ) (functional disability), and an 11-point Pain Intensity Numerical Rating Scale (PI-NRS) for pain.
Results: The pre and post-care mean scores of COOP were 13.16 (95% CI 9.33 – 16.99, P < 0.01) and 10.52 (CI 6.98 – 14.06, P < 0.01) respectively, 20.06% improvement. The MODQ were 17.72 (CI 11.02 – 24.42, P < 0.01) and 8.92 (CI 2.30 – 15.54, P < 0.01), 49.66% improvement in functional disability. The PI-NRS was 18.18 (CI 12.26 – 24.10, P < 0.01) and 10.60 (CI 3.80 – 6.80, P < 0.01), improving 41.69%.
Conclusions: Improvements appeared to be significant on general health, functional disability, and pain intensity after an intervention of 4-weeks with 6 visits of DNFT chiropractic care. These findings merit a randomized control trial of chiropractic versus a control group or other treatment modalities in the future.
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