SPINAL MANIPULATION
Posted on April 2, 2009, under General health.
Because spinal manipulation involves so much physical contact between patient and doctor, critics of this treatment attribute its success to the placebo effect of psychological support. Others question its safety. Carefully looking into the pros and cons of spinal manipulation, a team of physical medicine experts has studied this procedure in 1,880 patients at the Back Clinic of the Irvine Medical Center, California.
Publishing their findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association (245:1835), they demonstrated rather convincingly that pain relief produced by spinal manipulation is greater and more immediate than that resulting from either massage or medication. Furthermore, although there have been occasional reports of injury, they concluded that lower back manipulation is quite safe when performed by qualified practitioners. Please note that this applies only to lower spinal manipulation. Neck manipulation, an entirely different procedure, is inherently more dangerous.
The Irvine investigators also observed that certain types of patients should not receive spinal manipulation. These include pregnant women and anyone with osteoporosis (thinning of the bones, e.g., after the menopause), osteomyelitis (bone infection), metabolic disorders of bone (e.g., rickets or bony changes secondary to kidney, thyroid or pituitary disorders, etc.), fractures, cancer, ankylosing spondylitis (progressive arthritis with fusing together of the spinal bones), intervertebral disc displacement, or narrowing of the arteries feeding the spine.
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