Over the years, chiropractic care has shown to help a wide range of health problems, particularly when it comes to pain management. When it comes to lower back pain, seeing a Doctor of Chiropractic – or a chiropractor – has proven to have its benefits. Read on as we discuss about what chiropractors do and how they can help patients resolve their seemingly never-ending complaints of lower back pain.
What Do Chiropractors Do Exactly?
Chiropractors use a series of treatments intended to adjust the joints of the spine and extremities to improve functional ability and relieve pain. This is generally referred to as spinal manipulative therapy, although there are many more methods of chiropractic treatment. A chiropractor customizes their treatment approach based on the unique needs of the patient. They use a traditional philosophy, starting with a less invasive, more natural therapy before moving on to more aggressive methods.
How Does Chiropractic Care Work?
Before making any kind of diagnosis or treatment plan, a chiropractor will first thoroughly examine the patient. One of the initial aspects that they will assess is the patient’s health history. They will investigate the characteristics of the pain and determine if any further diagnostic testing is needed to rule out potentially serious medical issues associated with lower back pain like tumors, fractures, infections and neurological disorders.
There are various reasons for lower back pain to occur. A chiropractor will consider these reasons to determine the most appropriate treatment approach. Aside from looking into health history, they will also do physical examination, along with neurological and orthopedic tests. They will test the patient’s reflexes, joints, muscles, sensory nerves and other areas of the body. For nonspecific lower back pain, although laboratory and imaging tests are not recommended, they might be necessary if there are indications of a critical underlying condition.
Treatment Plan for Lower Back Pain
A chiropractor looks into the conditions and symptoms of an illness and injury before classifying them on their severity and how long they will last. Symptoms are further divided into degrees of severity, which are mild, moderate and severe. When it comes to duration, pain can be referred as acute (persisting for less than 6 weeks), subacute (persisting from 6 to 12 weeks), chronic (persisting for at least 12 weeks), and recurrent (reoccurring sporadically or because the original injury was exacerbating).
For a patient suffering from acute or subacute lower back pain, a conventional chiropractic therapeutic trial is made up of 2 to 3 weekly sessions running between 2 to 4 weeks, with a total of up to 12 sessions per trial. This period of treatment is often enough to minimize some of the pain and symptoms, however, correcting a biomechanical spinal problem may take longer. Additional treatment may be needed to stabilize the problem to avoid or minimize back pain in the future.
Expectations from Chiropractic Care
Outcome measurements for chiropractic care are an important tool for chiropractors because these helps them determine if the treatment shows significant improvements. Some of the ways chiropractors measure the treatment outcomes include patient rating from a Numeric Pain Scale or a pain diagram to describe the character and location of the pain; looking for increases in daily living activities, like the ability to sleep, exercise and work; and testing functional capacity, like flexibility, strength, endurance and lifting ability.
Chiropractor care is non-drug and non-surgical in its approach, which is a preferred method for many patients who want a natural and minimally invasive approach to their back pain.
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