Abstract
Objective
Although chiropractic manipulation is commonly used for low back pain, applying this
procedure to the patient with postlumbar spine surgery has not been adequately studied.
The purpose of this retrospective chart review is to report on the results of chiropractic
management (including Cox flexion distraction technique) of patients with postsurgical
lumbar spine pain to determine the change in reported pain based on surgical type.
Methods
Ten years of patient files from one chiropractic practice were electronically screened
for lumbar spine surgery occurring before presenting for chiropractic care. Of the
58 patients with a postsurgical diagnosis, 32 files contained all pertinent components
for this study including treatment with Cox flexion distraction manipulation (in addition
to adjunct procedures) for at least 2 weeks and pretreatment and posttreatment pain
measures using the Numeric Pain Scale (NPS) that ranged from 0 (no pain) to 10 (worst
pain imaginable).
Results
A change was observed in the mean pretreatment and posttreatment NPS pain scores of
6.4 to 2.3, a reduction of 4.1 of 10. The mean number of treatments was 14, with a
range of 6 to 31. When stratified by surgical type, the mean change in pain was most
remarkable in patients who underwent a surgery that combined lumbar discectomy, fusion,
and/or laminectomy, with an average NPS pain reduction of 5.7 of 10. No adverse events
were reported for any of these postsurgical patients.
Conclusions
The results of this study showed improvement for patients with low back pain subsequent
to lumbar spine surgery who were managed with chiropractic care.
Key Indexing Terms
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
May 13,
2011
Received in revised form:
April 5,
2011
Received:
February 5,
2011
Identification
Copyright
© 2011 National University of Health Sciences. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
