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eISSN: 2373-6437

Anesthesia & Critical Care: Open Access

News Volume 4 Issue 6

Chiropractic Care Reduces Costs and Re Occurrence of Low Back Pain

Mohamed M Hassan

President at Dr. Hassan Chiropractic & Natural healing, USA

Correspondence: Mohamed M Hassan, President at Dr. Hassan Chiropractic & Natural healing, Texas Chiropractic College, USA

Received: April 28, 2016 | Published: May 2, 2016

Citation: Hassan MM (2016) Chiropractic Care Reduces Costs and Re Occurrence of Low Back Pain. J Anesth Crit Care Open Access 4(6): 00163. DOI: 10.15406/jaccoa.2016.04.00163

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News

Up to 84% of the general population has been found to report low back pain (LBP) symptoms at some point during their lifetime.

  1. Not a surprise that back pain is the second most common symptom-related reason for clinician visits in the United States.

The costs for spinal conditions continue to rise. Consider that back pain has substantial recurrence rates that may affect 40% to 50% of patients within 6 months and 70% within 12 months. 

  1. These developments have highlighted that LBP is a priority for employers focusing on workforce health and productivity (H&P). Employers are seeking (i.e. value) for the investments that they are making in their employees. Furthermore, what treatments actually cost and how effective they are in their workforce.
  2. The Researchers had found that patients receiving chiropractic care have lower associations of probability of disability recurrence than patients of complex medical care / physicians, ---- and early use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been linked to prolonged disability, higher costs, and greater use of surgery without evidence of benefit on health and function.

Research Samples consisted of back pain episodes were classified into 3 groups: 1: Low back pain with Neurologic findings: Radiation (pain travelling to other areas other than the back), having burning, needling, electric shock like sensation, and or numbness (loss of feeling sensations), muscle weakness or atrophy, -- etc. 2: Low back pain with No Neurologic findings 3: Other back pain / problems.

  1. Of all employees, 39.4% of employees had at least one back pain episode and many had multiple episodes of Low back pain. Total costs (direct/indirect) per employee were calculated per year.
  2. Results indicated that overall: Information and Advice: simple office visits, lab tests, emergency department or hospital visits, talk therapy, or visits involving imaging (59%).
  3. The chiropractic group had the lowest prescription medication rates, least costs per episode of low back pain, and least -- use of medications and imaging and also was the least likely to receive complex medical procedures like surgeries. 
  4. The complex Medical management costs were greater than 4 times more expensive for an episode of low back pain (over 3 years) with neurological findings than chiropractic care ($6,983.82 vs Medical care $28,231.5).
  5.  Physical therapy costs were more than double per episode of low back pain compared with chiropractic care ($6983.82 vs $17,193.92). 
  6. The complex medical management approach recorded the highest rates of prescription fills for opiods, other pain medications, SSRI/SNRI/tricyclics, and anxiolytics/sedatives/hypnotics. 
  7. The PT group had the highest rates for NSAIDs, muscle relaxant, and oral steroids.

Acknowledgments

None.

Conflicts of interest

Author declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Funding

None.

Creative Commons Attribution License

©2016 Hassan. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.