Patients With Acute Neck Pain Helped by Chiropractic - Study Shows

Published in the May 2006 issue of the peer reviewed scientific journal, The Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, is a study that looked at patients with acute neck pain and their results under chiropractic care.

Researchers listed the "aim" of this study as, "to determine the extent to which a group of patients with acute neck pain managed with chiropractic manipulative therapy (chiropractic adjustments) benefited from chiropractic care and the degree to which they were subsequently satisfied."

For this study 115 chiropractic patients were contacted, of whom 94 became study participants.  The breakdown was 60 women (64%) and 34 men with the mean age being 39.6 years old. The average number of visits that patients in this study received was 24.5.

Participants in this study responded to a telephone survey to measure pre and post treatment pain levels and their level of satisfaction with the care they received.  The patients used a 0 to 10 scale to rate pain, with 0 meaning that there was no pain and 10 was the worst pain imaginable.

The results with this group was impressive with patient pain levels improving significantly from a mean of 7.6 (median, 8.0) before chiropractic adjustments to 1.9 (median, 2.0) after care.  The participants were obviously very pleased with their results and researchers were able to rate the overall patient satisfaction level at 94%.

The researchers concluded, "Patients with acute neck pain involved in this study seemed to be satisfied with chiropractic treatment and reported reductions in associated pain levels and activity restrictions."