neck-pain
Some chiropractors claim that their main intervention, spinal manipulation, works for nonspecific neck pain by improving inter-vertebral range of motion (IV-RoM). But IV-RoM is difficult to measure, and whether it is related to clinical outcomes seems uncertain. Researchers from the Institute of Musculoskeletal Research & Clinical Implementation and the Anglo-European College of Chiropractic have just published a study that might throw some light on this issue. According to its authors, it was aimed at answering the following research questions:
- Does cervical spine flexion and extension IV-RoM increase after a course of spinal manipulation?
- Is there a relationships between any IV-RoM increases and clinical outcomes?
- How does palpation compare with objective measurement in the detection of hypo-mobile segments?
Thirty patients with nonspecific neck pain and 30 healthy controls matched for age and gender received quantitative fluoroscopy (QF) screenings to measure flexion and extension IV-RoM (C1-C6) at baseline and 4-week follow-up. Patients received up to 12 neck manipulations and completed NRS, NDI and Euroqol 5D-5L at baseline, plus PGIC and satisfaction questionnaires at follow-up. IV-RoM accuracy, repeatability and hypo-mobility cut-offs were determined. Minimal detectable changes (MDC) over 4 weeks were calculated from controls. Patients and control IV-RoMs were compared at baseline as well as changes in patients over 4 weeks. Correlations between outcomes and the number of manipulations received and the agreement (Kappa) between palpated and QF-detected of hypo-mobile segments were calculated.
QF had high accuracy (worst RMS error 0.5σ) and repeatability (highest SEM 1.1σ, lowest ICC 0.9σ) for IV-RoM measurement. Hypo-mobility cut offs ranged from 0.8σ to 3.5σ. No outcome was significantly correlated with increased IV-RoM above MDC and there was no significant difference between the number of hypo-mobile segments in patients and controls at baseline or significant increases in IV-RoMs in patients. However, there was a modest and significant correlation between the number of manipulations received and the number of levels and directions whose IV-RoM increased beyond MDC (Rho=0.39, p=0.043). There was also no agreement between palpation and QF in identifying hypo-mobile segments (Kappa 0.04-0.06).
The authors concluded that this study found no differences in cervical sagittal IV-RoM between patients with non-specific neck pain and matched controls. There was a modest dose-response relationship between the number of manipulations given and number of levels increasing IV-RoM – providing evidence that neck manipulation has a mechanical effect at segmental levels. However, patient-reported outcomes were not related to this.
This conclusion seems a little odd to me. In my view the study suggests a clearly negative answer to all the three research questions formulated above. An interesting paragraph from the authors’ discussion section provides further insight: The lack of a relationship between symptomatic improvement and increased IV-RoM is also of interest. Clearly other mechanisms that improved the comfort and functional capacity of the patients in this study were in play, including spontaneous recovery. Other important biological factors may have included chemical factors in joint and muscle and activation patterns in the latter. However, this study seemed to rule out central pain hypersensitivity as a factor, as this was not detected at baseline in any of the patients. Psychological and social factors and their influence on functional behavior may also have had a role and may have been influenced by the interventions received.
So, spinal manipulation does not seem to work by improving IV-RoM. Could this be because spinal manipulation does not work at all?
One alternative therapy that I have so far neglected on this blog is the Alexander Technique (AT). Actually, it was not really meant to become an alternative therapy when it was first discovered.
F.M. Alexander (1869-1955), an Australian actor, often experienced chronic laryngitis while performing. As his doctors could not help him, he developed a solution on his own. He found that excess muscular tension in his neck and body were causing his problems, and began to experiment on new ways to speak and move with greater ease. His health improved to such an extent that he decided to teach others what he had learned. Over a career span of more than fifty years, he refined his methods. After teaching for over 35 years, he began to train teachers of the ‘Alexander Technique’.
As used in alternative medicine, AT is an educational method aimed at increased sensory awareness and kinesthetic control to modify postural and movement patterns which might be associated with musculoskeletal problems. Proponents claim AT works for a range of conditions, including:
It has been suggested that AT is effective for chronic low back pain; however, so far only one recent study has determined its effects on chronic non-specific neck pain.
In this randomized controlled trial, patients were randomly allocated to either 5 weekly sessions of AT, heat pack application (HEAT) or guided imagery (GI). The primary outcome measure was the neck pain intensity on a 100-mm visual analogue scale at week 5. Secondary outcomes included neck disability, quality of life, satisfaction and adverse effects. Analyses of covariance were applied on an intention-to-treat population testing ordered hypotheses AT vs. HEAT and AT vs. GI.
A total of 72 patients were included, and 52 of them received all 5 interventions. No significant group difference was found for neck pain intensity when AT was compared to HEAT. However, an exploratory analysis revealed superiority of AT over GI. Significant group differences were also found for physical quality of life in favor of AT vs. HEAT or GI. Adverse events mainly related to slightly increased pain and muscle soreness. AT patients reported increased body awareness and control over the body, relaxing or stimulating effects and mood changes after the sessions.
The authors conclude that 5 sessions of AT were no better than a heat pack application for relieving chronic non-specific neck pain. Therefore it cannot be recommended as routine intervention at this time. Since exploratory analysis revealed some improvements of AT further trials are warranted for conclusive judgment.
One of the most irritating things with alternative medicine research, in my view, is the phenomenon that researchers tend to be quasi-religious advocates of the treatment they investigate. This seems to compel them all too often to extrapolate beyond reason and to drawing conclusions which are way too optimistic, frequently to an extend that borders on scientific misconduct. It is therefore a real pleasure to find an article that does not fall into this trap. I commend the authors for reporting this RCT and for their wisdom of being adequately cautious when formulating their conclusions.
I only wished it would happen more often!
Chronic neck pain is common and makes the life of many sufferers a misery. Pain-killers are helpful, of course, but who wants to take such medications on the long-term? Is there anything else these patients can do?
Massage therapy has been shown to work but how often for how long? This trial was designed to evaluate the optimal dose of massage for individuals with chronic neck pain. 228 individuals with chronic non-specific neck pain were recruited and randomized them to 5 groups receiving various doses of massage:
- 30-minute treatments 2 or 3 times weekly
- 60-minute treatments once weekly
- 60-minutte treatments twice weekly
- 60-minute treatments thrice weekly
- a 4-week period on a wait list
Neck-related dysfunction was assessed with the Neck Disability Index (range, 0-50 points) and pain intensity with a numerical rating scale (range, 0-10 points) at baseline and at 5 weeks.
The results suggested that 30-minute treatments were not significantly better than the waiting list control condition in terms of achieving a clinically meaningful improvement in neck dysfunction or pain, regardless of the frequency of treatments. In contrast, 60-minute treatments 2 and 3 times weekly significantly increased the likelihood of such improvement compared with the control condition in terms of both neck dysfunction and pain intensity.
The authors conclude that after 4 weeks of treatment, we found multiple 60-minute massages per week more effective than fewer or shorter sessions for individuals with chronic neck pain. Clinicians recommending massage and researchers studying this therapy should ensure that patients receive a likely effective dose of treatment.
So two or three hours of massage therapy seems to be optimal as a treatment for chronic neck pain. This would cost ~£ 200-300 per week! Who can or wants to afford this? And are there other options that might be less expensive and equally or more effective? For instance, is physiotherapeutic exercise an option?
I am not sure I know the answers to these questions but, before we recommend massage therapy to the many who chronically suffer from neck pain, we should find out.
The safety of the manual treatments such as spinal manipulation is a frequent subject on this blog. Few experts would disagree with the argument that more good data are needed – and what could be better data than that coming from a randomised clinical trial (RCT)?
The aim of this RCT was to investigate differences in occurrence of adverse events between three different combinations of manual treatment techniques used by manual therapists (i.e. chiropractors, naprapaths, osteopaths, physicians and physiotherapists) for patients seeking care for back and/or neck pain.
Participants were recruited among patients seeking care at the educational clinic of the Scandinavian College of Naprapathic Manual Medicine in Stockholm. 767 patients were randomized to one of three treatment arms:
- manual therapy (i.e. spinal manipulation, spinal mobilization, stretching and massage) (n = 249),
- manual therapy excluding spinal manipulation (n = 258)
- manual therapy excluding stretching (n = 260).
Treatments were provided by students in the seventh semester (of total 8). Adverse events were monitored via a questionnaire after each return visit and categorized in to five levels:
- short minor,
- long minor,
- short moderate,
- long moderate,
- serious
This was based on the duration and/or severity of the event.
The most common adverse events were soreness in muscles, increased pain and stiffness. No differences were found between the treatment arms concerning the occurrence of these adverse event. Fifty-one percent of patients, who received at least three treatments, experienced at least one adverse event after one or more visits. Women more often had short moderate adverse events, and long moderate adverse events than men.
The authors conclude that adverse events after manual therapy are common and transient. Excluding spinal manipulation or stretching do not affect the occurrence of adverse events. The most common adverse event is soreness in the muscles. Women reports more adverse events than men.
What on earth is naprapathy? I hear you ask. Here is a full explanation from a naprapathy website:
Naprapathy is a form of bodywork that is focused on the manual manipulation of the spine and connective tissue. Based on the fundamental principles of osteopathy and chiropractic techniques, naprapathy is a holistic and integrative approach to restoring whole health. In fact, naprapathy often incorporates multiple, complimentary therapies, such as massage, nutritional counseling, electrical muscle stimulation and low-level laser therapy.
Naprapathy also targets vertebral subluxations, or physical abnormalities present that suggest a misalignment or injury of the spinal vertebrae. This analysis is made by a physical inspection of the musculoskeletal system, as well as visual observation. The practitioner will also conduct a lengthy interview with the client to help determine stress level and nutritional status as well. An imbalance along one or more of these lines may signal trouble within the musculoskeletal structure.
The naprapathy practitioner is particularly skilled in identifying restricted or stressed components of the fascial system, or connective tissue. It is believed that where constriction of muscles, ligaments, and tendons exists, there is impaired blood flow and nerve functioning. Naprapathy attempts to correct these blockages through hands-on manipulation and stretching of connective tissue. However, since this discipline embodies a holistic approach, the naprapathy practitioner is also concerned with their client’s emotional health. To that end, many practitioners are also trained in psychotherapy and even hypnotherapy.
So, now we know!
We also know that the manual therapies tested here cause adverse effects in about half of all patients. This figure ties in nicely with the ones we had regarding chiropractic: ~ 50% of all patients suffer mild to moderate adverse effects after chiropractic spinal manipulation which usually last 2-3 days and can be strong enough to affect their quality of life. In addition very serious complications have been noted which luckily seem to be much rarer events.
In my view, this raises the question: DO THESE TREATMENTS GENERATE MORE GOOD THAN HARM? I fail to see any good evidence to suggest that they do – but, of course, I would be more than happy to revise this verdict, provided someone shows me the evidence.
The following is a guest post by Preston H. Long. It is an excerpt from his new book entitled ‘Chiropractic Abuse—A Chiropractor’s Lament’. Preston H. Long is a licensed chiropractor from Arizona. His professional career has spanned nearly 30 years. In addition to treating patients, he has testified at about 200 trials, performed more than 10,000 chiropractic case evaluations, and served as a consultant to several law enforcement agencies. He is also an associate professor at Bryan University, where he teaches in the master’s program in applied health informatics. His new book is one of the very few that provides an inside criticism of chiropractic. It is well worth reading, in my view.
Have you ever consulted a chiropractor? Are you thinking about seeing one? Do you care whether your tax and health-care dollars are spent on worthless treatment? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, there are certain things you should know.
1. Chiropractic theory and practice are not based on the body of knowledge related to health, disease, and health care that has been widely accepted by the scientific community.
Most chiropractors believe that spinal problems, which they call “subluxations,” cause ill health and that fixing them by “adjusting” the spine will promote and restore health. The extent of this belief varies from chiropractor to chiropractor. Some believe that subluxations are the primary cause of ill health; others consider them an underlying cause. Only a small percentage (including me) reject these notions and align their beliefs and practices with those of the science-based medical community. The ramifications and consequences of subluxation theory will be discussed in detail throughout this book.
2. Many chiropractors promise too much.
The most common forms of treatment administered by chiropractors are spinal manipulation and passive physiotherapy measures such as heat, ultrasound, massage, and electrical muscle stimulation. These modalities can be useful in managing certain problems of muscles and bones, but they have little, if any, use against the vast majority of diseases. But chiropractors who believe that “subluxations” cause ill health claim that spinal adjustments promote general health and enable patients to recover from a wide range of diseases. The illustrations below reflect these beliefs. The one to the left is part of a poster that promotes the notion that periodic spinal “adjustments” are a cornerstone of good health. The other is a patient handout that improperly relates “subluxations” to a wide range of ailments that spinal adjustments supposedly can help. Some charts of this type have listed more than 100 diseases and conditions, including allergies, appendicitis, anemia, crossed eyes, deafness, gallbladder problems, hernias, and pneumonia.
A 2008 survey found that exaggeration is common among chiropractic Web sites. The researchers looked at the Web sites of 200 chiropractors and 9 chiropractic associations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each site was examined for claims suggesting that chiropractic treatment was appropriate for asthma, colic, ear infection/earache/otitis media, neck pain, whiplash, headache/migraine, and lower back pain. The study found that 95% of the surveyed sites made unsubstantiated claims for at least one of these conditions and 38% made unsubstantiated claims for all of them.1 False promises can have dire consequences to the unsuspecting.
3. Our education is vastly inferior to that of medical doctors.
I rarely encountered sick patients in my school clinic. Most of my “patients” were friends, students, and an occasional person who presented to the student clinic for inexpensive chiropractic care. Most had nothing really wrong with them. In order to graduate, chiropractic college students are required to treat a minimum number of people. To reach their number, some resort to paying people (including prostitutes) to visit them at the college’s clinic.2
Students also encounter a very narrow range of conditions, most related to aches and pains. Real medical education involves contact with thousands of patients with a wide variety of problems, including many severe enough to require hospitalization. Most chiropractic students see patients during two clinical years in chiropractic college. Medical students also average two clinical years, but they see many more patients and nearly all medical doctors have an additional three to five years of specialty training before they enter practice.
Chiropractic’s minimum educational standards are quite low. In 2007, chiropractic students were required to evaluate and manage only 15 patients in order to graduate. Chiropractic’s accreditation agency ordered this number to increase to 35 by the fall of 2011. However, only 10 of the 35 must be live patients (eight of whom are not students or their family members)! For the remaining cases, students are permitted to “assist, observe, or participate in live, paper-based, computer-based, distance learning, or other reasonable alternative.”3 In contrast, medical students see thousands of patients.
Former National Council Against Health Fraud President William T. Jarvis, Ph.D., has noted that chiropractic school prepares its students to practice “conversational medicine”—where they glibly use medical words but lack the knowledge or experience to deal appropriately with the vast majority of health problems.4 Dr. Stephen Barrett reported a fascinating example of this which occurred when he visited a chiropractor for research purposes. When Barrett mentioned that he was recovering from an attack of vertigo (dizziness), the chiropractor quickly rattled off a textbook-like list of all the possible causes. But instead of obtaining a proper history and conducting tests to pinpoint a diagnosis, he x-rayed Dr. Barrett’s neck and recommended a one-year course of manipulations to make his neck more curved. The medical diagnosis, which had been appropriately made elsewhere, was a viral infection that cleared up spontaneously in about ten days.5
4. Our legitimate scope is actually very narrow.
Appropriate chiropractic treatment is relevant only to a narrow range of ailments, nearly all related to musculoskeletal problems. But some chiropractors assert that they can influence the course of nearly everything. Some even offer adjustments to farm animals and family pets.
5. Very little of what chiropractors do has been studied.
Although chiropractic has been around since 1895, little of what we do meets the scientific standard through solid research. Chiropractic apologists try to sound scientific to counter their detractors, but very little research actually supports what chiropractors do.
6. Unless your diagnosis is obvious, it’s best to get diagnosed elsewhere.
During my work as an independent examiner, I have encountered many patients whose chiropractor missed readily apparent diagnoses and rendered inappropriate treatment for long periods of time. Chiropractors lack the depth of training available to medical doctors. For that reason, except for minor injuries, it is usually better to seek medical diagnosis first.
7. We offer lots of unnecessary services.
Many chiropractors, particularly those who find “subluxations” in everyone, routinely advise patients to come for many months, years, and even for their lifetime. Practice-builders teach how to persuade people they need “maintenance care” long after their original problem has resolved. In line with this, many chiropractors offer “discounts” to patients who pay in advance and sign a contract committing them for 50 to 100 treatments. And “chiropractic pediatric specialists” advise periodic examinations and spinal adjustments from early infancy onward. (This has been aptly described as “womb to tomb” care.) Greed is not the only factor involved in overtreatment. Many who advise periodic adjustments are “true believers.” In chiropractic school, one of my classmates actually adjusted his newborn son while the umbilical cord was still attached. Another student had the school radiology department take seven x-rays of his son’s neck to look for “subluxations” presumably acquired during the birth process. The topic of unnecessary care is discussed further in Chapter 8.
8. “Cracking” of the spine doesn’t mean much.
Spinal manipulation usually produces a “popping” or “cracking” sound similar to what occurs when you crack your knuckles. Both are due to a phenomenon called cavitation, which occurs when there is a sudden decrease in joint pressure brought on by the manipulation. That allows dissolved gasses in the joint fluid to be released into the joint itself. Chiropractors sometimes state that the noise means that something therapeutic has taken place. However, the noise has no health-related significance and does not indicate that anything has been realigned. It simply means that gas was allowed to escape under less pressure than normal. Knuckles do not “go back into place” when you crack them, and neither do spinal bones.
9. If the first few visits don’t help you, more treatment probably won’t help.
I used to tell my patients “three and through.” If we did not see significant objective improvement in three visits, it was time to move on.
10. We take too many x-rays.
No test should be done unless it is likely to provide information that will influence clinical management of the patient. X-ray examinations are appropriate when a fracture, tumor, infection, or neurological defect is suspected. But they are not needed for evaluating simple mechanical-type strains, such as back or neck pain that develops after lifting a heavy object.
The average number of x-rays taken during the first visit by chiropractors whose records I have been asked to review has been about eleven. Those records were sent to me because an insurance company had flagged them for investigation into excessive billing, so this number of x-rays is much higher than average. But many chiropractors take at least a few x-rays of everyone who walks through their door.
There are two main reasons why chiropractors take more x-rays than are medically necessary. One is easy money. It costs about 35¢ to buy an 8- x 10-inch film, for which they typically charge $40. In chiropractic, the spine encompasses five areas: the neck, mid-back, low-back, pelvic, and sacral regions. That means five separate regions to bill for—typically three to seven views of the neck, two to six for the low back, and two for each of the rest. So eleven x-ray films would net the chiropractor over $400 for just few minutes of work. In many accident cases I have reviewed, the fact that patients had adequate x-ray examinations in a hospital emergency department to rule out fractures did not deter the chiropractor from unnecessarily repeating these exams.
Chiropractors also use x-ray examinations inappropriately for marketing purposes. Chiropractors who do this point to various things on the films that they interpret as (a) subluxations, (b) not enough spinal curvature, (c) too much spinal curvature, and/or (d) “spinal decay,” all of which supposedly call for long courses of adjustments with periodic x-ray re-checks to supposedly assess progress. In addition to wasting money, unnecessary x-rays entail unnecessary exposure to the risks of ionizing radiation.
11. Research on spinal manipulation does not reflect what takes place in most chiropractic offices.
Research studies that look at spinal manipulation are generally done under strict protocols that protect patients from harm. The results reflect what happens when manipulation is done on patients who are appropriately screened—usually by medical teams that exclude people with conditions that would make manipulation dangerous. The results do not reflect what typically happens when patients select chiropractors on their own. The chiropractic marketplace is a mess because most chiropractors ignore research findings and subject their patients to procedures that are unnecessary and/or senseless.
12. Neck manipulation is potentially dangerous.
Certain types of chiropractic neck manipulation can damage neck arteries and cause a stroke. Chiropractors claim that the risk is trivial, but they have made no systematic effort to actually measure it. Chapter 9 covers this topic in detail.
13. Most chiropractors don’t know much about nutrition.
Chiropractors learn little about clinical nutrition during their schooling. Many offer what they describe as “nutrition counseling.” But this typically consists of superficial advice about eating less fat and various schemes to sell you supplements that are high-priced and unnecessary.
14. Chiropractors who sell vitamins charge much more than it costs them.
Chiropractors who sell vitamins typically recommend them unnecessarily and charge two to three times what they pay for them. Some chiropractors center their practice around selling vitamins to patients. Their recommendations are based on hair analysis, live blood analysis, applied kinesiology muscle-testing or other quack tests that will be discussed later in this book. Patients who are victimized this way typically pay several dollars a day and are encouraged to stay on the products indefinitely. In one case I investigated, an Arizona chiropractor advised an 80+-year-old grandma to charge more than $10,000 for vitamins to her credit cards to avoid an impending stroke that he had diagnosed by testing a sample of her pubic hair. No hair test can determine that a stroke is imminent or show that dietary supplements are needed. Doctors who evaluated the woman at the Mayo Clinic found no evidence to support the chiropractor’s assessment.
15. Chiropractors have no business treating young children.
The pediatric training chiropractors receive during their schooling is skimpy and based mainly on reading. Students see few children and get little or no experience in diagnosing or following the course of the vast majority of childhood ailments. Moreover, spinal adjustment has no proven effectiveness against childhood diseases. Some adolescents with spinal stiffness might benefit from manipulation, but most will recover without treatment. Chiropractors who claim to practice “chiropractic pediatrics” typically aim to adjust spines from birth onward and are likely to oppose immunization. Some chiropractors claim they can reverse or lessen the spinal curvature of scoliosis, but there is no scientific evidence that spinal manipulation can do this.6
16. The fact that patients swear by us does not mean we are actually helping them.
Satisfaction is not the same thing as effectiveness. Many people who believe they have been helped had conditions that would have resolved without treatment. Some have had treatment for dangers that did not exist but were said by the chiropractor to be imminent. Many chiropractors actually take courses on how to trick patients to believe in them. (See Chapter 8)
17. Insurance companies don’t want to pay for chiropractic care.
Chiropractors love to brag that their services are covered by Medicare and most insurance companies. However, this coverage has been achieved though political action rather than scientific merit. I have never encountered an insurance company that would reimburse for chiropractic if not forced to do so by state laws. The political pressure to mandate chiropractic coverage comes from chiropractors, of course, but it also comes from the patients whom they have brainwashed.
18. Lots of chiropractors do really strange things.
The chiropractic profession seems to attract people who are prone to believe in strange things. One I know of does “aura adjustments” to treat people’s “bruised karma.” Another rents out a large crystal to other chiropractors so they can “recharge” their own (smaller) crystals. Another claims to get advice by “channeling” a 15th Century Scottish physician. Another claimed to “balance a woman’s harmonics” by inserting his thumb into her vagina and his index finger into her anus. Another treated cancer with an orange light that was mounted in a wooden box. Another did rectal exams on all his female patients. Even though such exams are outside the legitimate scope of chiropractic, he also videotaped them so that if his bills for this service were questioned, he could prove that he had actually performed what he billed for.
19. Don’t expect our licensing boards to protect you.
Many chiropractors who serve on chiropractic licensing boards harbor the same misbeliefs that are rampant among their colleagues. This means, for example, that most boards are unlikely to discipline chiropractors for diagnosing and treating imaginary “subluxations.”
20. The media rarely look at what we do wrong.
The media rarely if ever address chiropractic nonsense. Reporting on chiropractic is complicated because chiropractors vary so much in what they do. (In fact, a very astute observer once wrote that “for every chiropractor, there is an equal and opposite chiropractor.”) Consumer Reports published superb exposés in 1975 and 1994, but no other print outlet has done so in the past 35 years. This lack of information is the main reason I have written this book.
References
1. Ernst E, Gilbey A. Chiropractic claims in the English-speaking world. New Zealand Medical Journal 123:36–44, 2010.
2. Bernet J. Affidavit, April 12, 1996. Posted to Chirobase Web site.
3. Standards for Doctor of Chiropractic Programs and Requirements for Institutional Status. Council on Chiropractic Education, Scottsdale, Arizona, Jan 2007.
4. Jarvis WT. Why becoming a chiropractor may be risky. Chirobase Web site, October 5, 1999.
5. Barrett S. My visit to a “straight” chiropractor. Quackwatch Web site, Oct 10, 2002.
6. Romano M, Negrini S. Manual therapy as a conservative treatment for idiopathic scoliosis: A review. Scoliosis 3:2, 2008.
Swiss chiropractors have just published a clinical trial to investigate outcomes of patients with radiculopathy due to cervical disk herniation (CDH). All patients had neck pain and dermatomal arm pain; sensory, motor, or reflex changes corresponding to the involved nerve root and at least one positive orthopaedic test for cervical radiculopathy were included. CDH was confirmed by magnetic resonance imaging. All patients received regular neck manipulations.
Baseline data included two pain numeric rating scales (NRSs), for neck and arm, and the Neck Disability Index (NDI). At two, four and twelve weeks after the initial consultation, patients were contacted by telephone, and the data for NDI, NRSs, and patient’s global impression of change were collected. High-velocity, low-amplitude thrusts were administered by experienced chiropractors. The proportion of patients reporting to feel “better” or “much better” on the patient’s global impression of change scale was calculated. Pre-treatment and post-treatment NRSs and NDIs were analysed.
Fifty patients were included. At two weeks, 55.3% were “improved,” 68.9% at four and 85.7% at twelve weeks. Statistically significant decreases in neck pain, arm pain, and NDI scores were noted at 1 and 3 months compared with baseline scores. 76.2% of all sub-acute/chronic patients were improved at 3 months.
The authors concluded that most patients in this study, including sub-acute/chronic patients, with symptomatic magnetic resonance imaging-confirmed CDH treated with spinal manipulative therapy, reported significant improvement with no adverse events.
In the presence of disc herniation, chiropractic manipulations have been described to cause serious complications. Some experts therefore believe that CDH is a contra-indication for spinal manipulation. The authors of this study imply, however, that it is not – on the contrary, they think it is an effective intervention for CDH.
One does not need to be a sceptic to notice that the basis for this assumption is less than solid. The study had no control group. This means that the observed effect could have been due to:
a placebo response,
the regression towards the mean,
the natural history of the condition,
concomitant treatments,
social desirability,
or other factors which have nothing to do with the chiropractic intervention per se.
And what about the interesting finding that no adverse-effects were noted? Does that mean that the treatment is safe? Sorry, but it most certainly does not! In order to generate reliable results about possibly rare complications, the study would have needed to include not 50 but well over 50 000 patients.
So what does the study really tell us? I have pondered over this question for some time and arrived at the following answer: NOTHING!
Is that a bit harsh? Well, perhaps yes. And I will revise my verdict slightly: the study does tell us something, after all – chiropractors tend to confuse research with the promotion of very doubtful concepts at the expense of their patients. I think, there is a name for this phenomenon: PSEUDO-SCIENCE.
Neck pain is a common problem which is often far from easy to treat. Numerous therapies are being promoted but few are supported by good evidence. Could yoga be the solution?
The aim of a brand-new RCT was to evaluate the effectiveness of Iyengar yoga for chronic non-specific neck pain. Patients were randomly assigned to either yoga or exercise. The yoga group attended a 9-week yoga course, while the exercise group received a self-care manual on home-based exercises for neck pain. The primary outcome measure was neck pain. Secondary outcome measures included functional disability, pain at motion, health-related quality of life, cervical range of motion, proprioceptive acuity, and pressure pain threshold. Fifty-one patients participated in the study: yoga (n = 25), exercise (n = 26). At the end of the treatment phase, patients in the yoga group reported significantly less neck pain compared as well as less disability and better mental quality of life compared with the exercise group. Range of motion and proprioceptive acuity were improved and the pressure pain threshold was elevated in the yoga group.
The authors draw the following conclusion: “Yoga was more effective in relieving chronic nonspecific neck pain than a home-based exercise program. Yoga reduced neck pain intensity and disability and improved health-related quality of life. Moreover, yoga seems to influence the functional status of neck muscles, as indicated by improvement of physiological measures of neck pain.”
I’d love to agree with the authors and would be more than delighted, if an effective treatment for neck pain had been identified. Yoga is fairly safe and inexpensive; it promotes a generally healthy life-style, and is attractive to many patients; it has thus the potential to help thousands of suffering individuals. However, I fear that things might not be quite as rosy as the authors of this trial seem to believe.
The principle of an RCT essentially is that two groups of patients receive two different therapies and that any difference in outcome after the treatment phase is attributable to the therapy in question. Unfortunately, this is not the case here. One does not need to be an expert in critical thinking to realise that, in the present study, the positive outcome might be unrelated to yoga. For instance, it could be that the unsupervised home exercises were carried out wrongly and thus made the neck pain worse. In this case, the difference between the two treatment groups might not have been caused by yoga at all. A second possibility is that the yoga-group benefited not from the yoga itself but from the attention given to these patients which the exercise-group did not have. A third explanation could be that the yoga teachers were very kind to their patients, and that the patients returned their kindness by pretending to have less symptoms or exaggerating their improvements. In my view the most likely cause of the results seen in this study is a complex mixture of all the options just mentioned.
This study thus teaches us two valuable lessons: 1) whenever possible, RCTs should be designed such that a clear attribution of cause and effect is possible, once the results are on the table; 2) if cause and effect cannot be clearly defined, it is unwise to draw conclusions that are definite and have the potential to mislead the public.
As I have mentioned before, I like positive news as much as the next person. Therefore, I am constantly on the look-out for recently published, sound evidence suggesting that some form of alternative medicine is effective and safe for this or that condition. This new systematic review fits that description, I am pleased to report.
Its authors evaluated the effectiveness of massage therapy (MT) for neck and shoulder pain. Their extensive literature searches identified 12 high-quality studies. The meta-analyses showed significant effects of MT for neck pain and shoulder pain compared to inactive therapies. MT did not yield better effects for neck pain or shoulder pain than other active therapies administered to the control groups. Shoulder function was not significantly affected by MT. The authors concluded that “MT may provide immediate effects for neck and shoulder pain. However, MT does not show better effects on pain than other active therapies. No evidence suggests that MT is effective in functional status”.
Massage therapy is thus a promising treatment, particularly as this systematic review is by no means the only piece of encouraging evidence. It is not better than other effective treatments, but it is not associated with frequent or serious adverse effects. This means that the demonstrable benefits are likely to outweigh its risks; in other words, the risk benefit balance is positive. Regular readers of this blog will appreciate the importance of this point.
Massage is practiced by several professions: mostly, of course, by massage therapists, but occasionally also by nurses, osteopath, chiropractors etc. Chiropractors, in particular, have recently tried to make much – I think too much – of this fact. They tend to claim that, as they use treatments which are evidence-based, such as massage, chiropractic is an evidence-based profession. I think this is akin to surgeons claiming that all of surgery is evidence-based because surgeons use medications which effectively reduce post-operative pain. Chiropractors foremost employ spinal manipulation and surgeons foremost use surgery; if they want us to believe that their practice is evidence-based, they need to show us the evidence for their hall-mark interventions. In the case of surgery, the evidence is mostly established; in the case of chiropractic, it is mostly not.
Massage is backed by reasonably sound evidence not just for neck and shoulder pain but for a range of other conditions as well. WHAT DO WE CALL AN ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE THAT WORKS? WE CALL IT MEDICINE!
So why is massage not a mainstream therapy? The answer is simple: in many countries, massage therapy has long been considered to be entirely conventional. Twenty years ago, I was chair of rehabilitation medicine at the university of Vienna. Amongst my staff, there always were about 5-8 full time massage therapists and nobody thought this to be unusual in any way. Similarly, in Germany, massage is entirely conventional.
Perhaps it is time that the English-speaking countries catch up with Europe when it comes to massage therapy and the evidence that supports it?
