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The Patient's Chiropractic Information Source: Find out what conditions can be
helped with Chiropractic care.
helped with Chiropractic care.
In the Spotlight:
CONSUMER REPORTS RANKS CHIROPRACTIC AS BEST TREATMENT!
Which Alternative Treatments Work? Consumer Reports' Survey of 34,000
Readers Finds Hands-on Treatments Most Successful
by Consumer Reports
7/2/2005 1:23:07 AM
YONKERS, N.Y., -- Alternative medicine is no longer truly alternative. A
Consumer Reports survey of more than 34,000 readers reveals that many
people have tried it, and more and more doctors are recommending it.
Readers gave the highest marks to hands-on treatments, which worked
better than conventional treatments for conditions such as back pain and
arthritis. Chiropractic was ranked ahead of all conventional
treatments, including prescription drugs, by readers with back pain.
Which Alternative Treatments Work? Consumer Reports' Survey of 34,000
Readers Finds Hands-on Treatments Most Successful
by Consumer Reports
7/2/2005 1:23:07 AM
YONKERS, N.Y., -- Alternative medicine is no longer truly alternative. A
Consumer Reports survey of more than 34,000 readers reveals that many
people have tried it, and more and more doctors are recommending it.
Readers gave the highest marks to hands-on treatments, which worked
better than conventional treatments for conditions such as back pain and
arthritis. Chiropractic was ranked ahead of all conventional
treatments, including prescription drugs, by readers with back pain.
Chiropractic Care May Reduce Surgeries:
Treating Back Pain Less Costly With Chiropractic Care
By Daniel DeNoon
WebMD Medical News
Oct. 12, 2004 -- Chiropractic care cuts health care costs, a new study shows.
The study comes from American Specialty Health Plans Inc. of San Diego. The company
provides employers with health insurance coverage for complementary medicine,
including chiropractic care and acupuncture.
The company compared four years of back pain claims from two groups: 700,000 health
plan members with chiropractic care coverage and 1 million members with the same
health plan without chiropractic care coverage. It's the largest study yet of how chiropractic
care affects the cost of health care, notes study co-leader Douglas Metz, DC, chief health
services officer at American Specialty Health.
"No matter how we perform the analysis -- whether we look at total costs to the health
plan, at lower back pain care, at musculoskeletal care -- in each data set, the population
covered for chiropractic had a lower overall cost to the health plan than the population
without access to chiropractic benefits," Metz tells WebMD. "We believe this study is the
first to show that chiropractic [care] can be a cost-effective treatment option for back pain."
Costs Down, Patient Satisfaction Up With Chiropractic Care
Compared with doctor-only health plans, the study found that:
Chiropractic care cut the cost of treating back pain by 28%.
Chiropractic care reduced hospitalizations among back pain patients by 41%.
Chiropractic care reduced back surgeries by 32%.
Chiropractic care reduced the cost of medical imaging, such as X-rays or MRIs, by 37%.
The report appears in the Oct. 11 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
Although the researchers did not look at patient satisfaction in this study, Metz says
company studies show that 95% of chiropractic care patients are satisfied with the care
they receive.
Patients often say they are satisfied with the chiropractic care they receive, says Scott
Boden, MD, director of the Emory Orthopaedic and Spine Center in Atlanta.
Treating Back Pain Less Costly With Chiropractic Care
By Daniel DeNoon
WebMD Medical News
Oct. 12, 2004 -- Chiropractic care cuts health care costs, a new study shows.
The study comes from American Specialty Health Plans Inc. of San Diego. The company
provides employers with health insurance coverage for complementary medicine,
including chiropractic care and acupuncture.
The company compared four years of back pain claims from two groups: 700,000 health
plan members with chiropractic care coverage and 1 million members with the same
health plan without chiropractic care coverage. It's the largest study yet of how chiropractic
care affects the cost of health care, notes study co-leader Douglas Metz, DC, chief health
services officer at American Specialty Health.
"No matter how we perform the analysis -- whether we look at total costs to the health
plan, at lower back pain care, at musculoskeletal care -- in each data set, the population
covered for chiropractic had a lower overall cost to the health plan than the population
without access to chiropractic benefits," Metz tells WebMD. "We believe this study is the
first to show that chiropractic [care] can be a cost-effective treatment option for back pain."
Costs Down, Patient Satisfaction Up With Chiropractic Care
Compared with doctor-only health plans, the study found that:
Chiropractic care cut the cost of treating back pain by 28%.
Chiropractic care reduced hospitalizations among back pain patients by 41%.
Chiropractic care reduced back surgeries by 32%.
Chiropractic care reduced the cost of medical imaging, such as X-rays or MRIs, by 37%.
The report appears in the Oct. 11 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
Although the researchers did not look at patient satisfaction in this study, Metz says
company studies show that 95% of chiropractic care patients are satisfied with the care
they receive.
Patients often say they are satisfied with the chiropractic care they receive, says Scott
Boden, MD, director of the Emory Orthopaedic and Spine Center in Atlanta.
In the Spotlight:
Doctors Overly Optimistic About Back Surgery
WebMDHealth
Salynn Boyles
June 15, 2005 -- Surgeons tend to be "overly optimistic" when they counsel patients
about the benefits of back surgery, a new study shows.
Almost 40% of patients in the study reported virtually no difference in back pain one
year after having back surgery. But prior to surgery almost all of their surgeons predicted
that they would have less pain and most said surgery would result in "a great deal of
improvement." The research is published in the June 15 issue of the journal Spine.
"Surgeons tended to give overly optimistic predictions, which were not correlated with
patient outcome at one-year follow-up," wrote researcher Bertrand Graz, MD, and
colleagues from Switzerland's University of Lausanne Medical Centre.
Back Surgery Failed to Help Many
A total of 197 patients who had surgery for low-back pain or sciatica were included in the
study. Prior to operating, their surgeons were asked to predict how much the surgery
would improve their patients' quality of life. The surgeons predicted that 79% of patients
would have "a great deal of improvement" and 20% would have "moderate improvement."
A year after back surgery, the patients were questioned about their experience. More than
half (56%) of those whose surgeons predicted a great deal of benefit reported no
significant improvement in their general health. Overall, the surgeons had predicted that
99% of patients would have some improvement with surgery. But a year later, 39% of the
patients said the surgery did not help their back pain. Ironically, the doctors were best able
to predict surgical results for patients who were the poorest candidates for back surgery.
Among the patients for whom surgery was considered inappropriate, based on strict
guidelines, higher surgeon expectation was linked to greater improvement.
Psychosocial Factors Important
The study is not the first to find that surgery is not the cure-all for low-back pain that
many patients think it is, or the first to suggest that doctors do a poor job of predicting
which patients will benefit the most from back surgery.
Research presented last winter at the annual meeting of the American Academy of
Orthopaedic Surgeons found that factors such as patient education level, depression,
smoking, and whether or not a patient had filed a workers' compensation claim all affected
surgical results among low-back-pain patients. A researcher of that study, William Abdu,
MD, tells WebMD that surgeons need to be aware that a host of physical, psychological,
and social issues unrelated to back pain can influence surgical results. "There is a
tendency among patients to think that if they have an operation everything will be normal,"
he says. "But the more medical and psychosocial [issues] a patient has, the lower the
expectations for surgery should be."
Most Patients Are Poor Candidates
Orthopaedic surgeon Jeffery C. Wang, MD, agrees that doctors need to take medical and
psychological issues into consideration when deciding whether a patient will benefit from
back surgery. Wang is chief of the spine service for the UCLA department of orthopaedic
surgery and a spokesman for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
"The key to any successful surgery is patient selection," he tells WebMD, adding that
psychologically distressed patients who otherwise appear to be good candidates for back
surgery often have poor surgical results. Wang says less than 10% of patients with
low-back pain are appropriate surgical candidates. And he acknowledges that there
are probably too many back surgeries being performed. "There are certainly doctors
who are performing too many surgeries, but that certainly isn't true of everyone," he says.
There are very good studies out there showing that if you select the right patient for the
right surgery, outcomes are very good."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOURCES: Graz, B. Spine, June 15, 2005, online edition. Bertrand Graz, MD, MPH,
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Lausanne Medical Center,
Lausanne, Switzerland. William A. Abdu, MD, associate professor and director, Spine
Center at Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, N.H. Jeffery C. Wang, MD, chief of spine
service, department of orthopedic surgery, UCLA; spokesman, American Academy of
Orthopaedic Surgeons.
Reviewed by Michael Smith
WebMDHealth
Salynn Boyles
June 15, 2005 -- Surgeons tend to be "overly optimistic" when they counsel patients
about the benefits of back surgery, a new study shows.
Almost 40% of patients in the study reported virtually no difference in back pain one
year after having back surgery. But prior to surgery almost all of their surgeons predicted
that they would have less pain and most said surgery would result in "a great deal of
improvement." The research is published in the June 15 issue of the journal Spine.
"Surgeons tended to give overly optimistic predictions, which were not correlated with
patient outcome at one-year follow-up," wrote researcher Bertrand Graz, MD, and
colleagues from Switzerland's University of Lausanne Medical Centre.
Back Surgery Failed to Help Many
A total of 197 patients who had surgery for low-back pain or sciatica were included in the
study. Prior to operating, their surgeons were asked to predict how much the surgery
would improve their patients' quality of life. The surgeons predicted that 79% of patients
would have "a great deal of improvement" and 20% would have "moderate improvement."
A year after back surgery, the patients were questioned about their experience. More than
half (56%) of those whose surgeons predicted a great deal of benefit reported no
significant improvement in their general health. Overall, the surgeons had predicted that
99% of patients would have some improvement with surgery. But a year later, 39% of the
patients said the surgery did not help their back pain. Ironically, the doctors were best able
to predict surgical results for patients who were the poorest candidates for back surgery.
Among the patients for whom surgery was considered inappropriate, based on strict
guidelines, higher surgeon expectation was linked to greater improvement.
Psychosocial Factors Important
The study is not the first to find that surgery is not the cure-all for low-back pain that
many patients think it is, or the first to suggest that doctors do a poor job of predicting
which patients will benefit the most from back surgery.
Research presented last winter at the annual meeting of the American Academy of
Orthopaedic Surgeons found that factors such as patient education level, depression,
smoking, and whether or not a patient had filed a workers' compensation claim all affected
surgical results among low-back-pain patients. A researcher of that study, William Abdu,
MD, tells WebMD that surgeons need to be aware that a host of physical, psychological,
and social issues unrelated to back pain can influence surgical results. "There is a
tendency among patients to think that if they have an operation everything will be normal,"
he says. "But the more medical and psychosocial [issues] a patient has, the lower the
expectations for surgery should be."
Most Patients Are Poor Candidates
Orthopaedic surgeon Jeffery C. Wang, MD, agrees that doctors need to take medical and
psychological issues into consideration when deciding whether a patient will benefit from
back surgery. Wang is chief of the spine service for the UCLA department of orthopaedic
surgery and a spokesman for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
"The key to any successful surgery is patient selection," he tells WebMD, adding that
psychologically distressed patients who otherwise appear to be good candidates for back
surgery often have poor surgical results. Wang says less than 10% of patients with
low-back pain are appropriate surgical candidates. And he acknowledges that there
are probably too many back surgeries being performed. "There are certainly doctors
who are performing too many surgeries, but that certainly isn't true of everyone," he says.
There are very good studies out there showing that if you select the right patient for the
right surgery, outcomes are very good."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOURCES: Graz, B. Spine, June 15, 2005, online edition. Bertrand Graz, MD, MPH,
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Lausanne Medical Center,
Lausanne, Switzerland. William A. Abdu, MD, associate professor and director, Spine
Center at Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, N.H. Jeffery C. Wang, MD, chief of spine
service, department of orthopedic surgery, UCLA; spokesman, American Academy of
Orthopaedic Surgeons.
Reviewed by Michael Smith
In the Spotlight:
New Study Shows Chiropractic Is Cost-Effective in Treating Chronic Back Pain
Arlington, VA (Nov. 15, 2005) -- A new study finds that chiropractic and medical care have
comparable costs for treating chronic low-back pain, with chiropractic care producing
significantly better outcomes. A group of chronic low-back patients who underwent
chiropractic treatment showed higher pain relief and satisfaction with the care and
lower disability scores than a group that underwent medical care, according to an
October 2005 study in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (JMPT).
Although several cost-effectiveness studies outside the United States have favorably
compared chiropractic to medical care, this new study is one of the first to compare low-
back treatment costs and outcomes within the structure of the American health care
system. In the United States alone, back pain associated costs are estimated to reach $48
billion this year, and, at any given time, 80 percent of the U.S. population suffers from back
pain – statistics that make this study especially pertinent, according to the authors.
Arlington, VA (Nov. 15, 2005) -- A new study finds that chiropractic and medical care have
comparable costs for treating chronic low-back pain, with chiropractic care producing
significantly better outcomes. A group of chronic low-back patients who underwent
chiropractic treatment showed higher pain relief and satisfaction with the care and
lower disability scores than a group that underwent medical care, according to an
October 2005 study in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (JMPT).
Although several cost-effectiveness studies outside the United States have favorably
compared chiropractic to medical care, this new study is one of the first to compare low-
back treatment costs and outcomes within the structure of the American health care
system. In the United States alone, back pain associated costs are estimated to reach $48
billion this year, and, at any given time, 80 percent of the U.S. population suffers from back
pain – statistics that make this study especially pertinent, according to the authors.
Chiropractic is Safe.
Records form insurance and court cases have constantly shown that chiropractic is the
safest portal of entry health care available to the public today. Although no healthcare
procedures are 100% safe, chiropractic stands on its record of safety and effectiveness
unmatched in healthcare. To learn more about the safety record of chiropractic please visit
the website Chiropractic Is Safe at www.chiropracticissafe.org.
Records form insurance and court cases have constantly shown that chiropractic is the
safest portal of entry health care available to the public today. Although no healthcare
procedures are 100% safe, chiropractic stands on its record of safety and effectiveness
unmatched in healthcare. To learn more about the safety record of chiropractic please visit
the website Chiropractic Is Safe at www.chiropracticissafe.org.
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