Chiropractic Care Beneficial for Chronic Neck Pain According to Study

A new study published in the February 2006 issue of the scientific periodical the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (JMPT), shows that patients with chronic neck pain benefit from chiropractic.  The authors start off by noting that neck pain is, "a very cost-demanding health problem."  The study was performed at the Scandinavian College of Chiropractic in Stockholm, Sweden.

In this study patients with complaints of continuous neck pain during the previous 3 months were considered chronic and accepted for participation in the study.  Of all those participating, the patients were divided into two groups.  One group was a control group with no chiropractic care while the other group received chiropractic.

The same outcome measurements were used on both groups to be able to compare the results. A follow up assessment was done on all patients at the time of the initial consultation and then a second time at the end of the 5-week study period which was 2-4 days after the conclusion of the treatments for the patients in the treatment group.

The assessments were done to review three areas, symptoms, cervical range of motion, and head repositioning accuracy. Head repositioning accuracy, (HRA) is a test that measures the ability of the neuroarticulomuscular system to reposition the head in a neutral posture after active movements.

The results showed that for two of the areas tested, the group that received chiropractic care on average showed improvement.  With respect to pain, after the intervention, the chiropractic group showed a significantly lower degree of pain intensity. The results of the testing for head repositioning (HRA) were even more impressive, where significant improvements in all aspects of HRA were seen for the group that received chiropractic care. There was however, no perceivable difference in the groups relative to range of motion at the conclusion of the study.

The researchers noted, "The results of this study suggest that chiropractic care can be effective in influencing the complex process of proprioceptive sensibility and pain of cervical origin."  In other simpler words, chiropractic helped for people with long standing neck pain.