osteopathy
What is the best treatment for the millions of people who suffer from chronic low back pain (CLBP)? If we are honest, no therapy has yet been proven to be overwhelmingly effective. Whenever something like that happens in medicine, we have a proliferation of interventions which all are promoted as effective but which, in fact, work just marginally. And sure enough, in the case of CLBP, we have a constantly growing list of treatments none of which is really convincing.
One of the latest additions to this list is PILATES.
Pilates? What is this ? One practitioner describes it as follows: In Pilates, we pay a lot of attention to how our body parts are lined up in relation to each other, which is our alignment. We usually think of our alignment as our posture, but good posture is a dynamic process, dependent on the body’s ability to align its parts to respond to varying demands effectively. When alignment is off, uneven stresses on the skeleton, especially the spine, are the result. Pilates exercises, done with attention to alignment, create uniform muscle use and development, allowing movement to flow through the body in a natural way.
For example, one of the most common postural imbalances that people have is the tendency to either tuck or tilt the pelvis. Both positions create weaknesses on one side of the body and overly tight areas on the other. They deny the spine the support of its natural curves and create a domino effect of aches and pains all the way up the spine and into the neck. Doing Pilates increases the awareness of the proper placement of the spine and pelvis, and creates the inner strength to support the natural curves of the spine. This is called having a neutral spine and it has been the key to better backs for many people.
Mumbo-jumbo? Perhaps; in any case, we need evidence! Is there any at all? Surprisingly, the answer is yes. Recently, someone even published a proper systematic review.
This systematic review was aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of Pilates exercise in people with chronic low back pain (CLBP).
A search for RCTs was undertaken in 10 electronic. Two independent reviewers did the selection of evidence and evaluated the quality of the primary studies. To be included, relevant RCTs needed to be published in the English language. From 152 studies, 14 RCTs could be included.
The methodological quality of RCTs ranged from “poor” to “excellent”. A meta-analysis of RCTs was not undertaken due to the heterogeneity of RCTs. Pilates exercise provided statistically significant improvements in pain and functional ability compared to usual care and physical activity between 4 and 15 weeks, but not at 24 weeks. There were no consistent statistically significant differences in improvements in pain and functional ability with Pilates exercise, massage therapy, or other forms of exercise at any time period.
The authors drew the following conclusions: Pilates exercise offers greater improvements in pain and functional ability compared to usual care and physical activity in the short term. Pilates exercise offers equivalent improvements to massage therapy and other forms of exercise. Future research should explore optimal Pilates exercise designs, and whether some people with CLBP may benefit from Pilates exercise more than others.
So, Pilates can be added to the long list of treatments that work for CLBP, albeit not convincingly better than most other therapies on offer. Does that mean these options are all as good or as bad as the next? I don’t think so.
Let’s assume chiropractic/osteopathic manipulations, massage and various forms of exercise are all equally effective. How do we decide which is more commendable than the next? We clearly need to take other important factors into account:
- cost
- risks
- acceptability for patients
- availability
If we use these criteria, it becomes instantly clear that chiropractic and osteopathy are not favourites in this race for the most commendable CLBP-treatment. They are neither cheap nor free of risks. Massage is virtually risk-free but not cheap. This leaves us with various forms of exercise, including Pilates. But which exercise is better than the next? At present, we do not know, and therefore the last two factors are crucial: if people love doing Pilates and if they easily stick with it, then Pilates is fine.
I am sure chiropractors will (yet again) disagree with me but, to me, this logic could hardly be more straight forward.
Yesterday, BBC NEWS published the following interesting text about a BBC4 broadcast entitled ‘THE ROYAL ACTIVIST’ aired on the same day:
Prince Charles has been a well-known supporter of complementary medicine. According to a… former Labour cabinet minister, Peter Hain, it was a topic they shared an interest in.
“He had been constantly frustrated at his inability to persuade any health ministers anywhere that that was a good idea, and so he, as he once described it to me, found me unique from this point of view, in being somebody that actually agreed with him on this, and might want to deliver it.”
Mr Hain added: “When I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in 2005-7, he was delighted when I told him that since I was running the place I could more or less do what I wanted to do.***
“I was able to introduce a trial for complementary medicine on the NHS, and it had spectacularly good results, that people’s well-being and health was vastly improved.
“And when he learnt about this he was really enthusiastic and tried to persuade the Welsh government to do the same thing and the government in Whitehall to do the same thing for England, but not successfully,” added Mr Hain.
*** obviously there is no homeopathic remedy for megalomania (but that’s a different story)
Oh really?
A TRIAL?
SPECTACULARLY GOOD RESULTS?
NO KIDDING?
Let’s have a look at the ‘trial’ and its results. An easily accessible report provides the following details about it:
From February 2007 to February 2008, Get Well UK ran the UK’s first government-backed complementary therapy pilot. Sixteen practitioners provided treatments including acupuncture, osteopathy and aromatherapy, to more than 700 patients at two GP practices in Belfast and Derry.
The BBC made an hour long documentary following our trials and tribulations, which was broadcast on BBC1 NI on 5 May 2008.
Following the successful completion of the pilot, the results were analysed by Social and Market Research and recommendations were made to the Health Minister
Aims and Objectives
The aim of the project was to pilot services integrating complementary medicine into existing primary care services in Northern Ireland. Get Well UK provided this pilot project for the Department for Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS) during 2007.
The objectives were:
- To measure the health outcomes of the service and monitor health improvements.
- To redress inequalities in access to complementary medicine by providing therapies through the NHS, allowing access regardless of income.
- To contribute to best practise in the field of delivering complementary therapies through primary care.
- To provide work for suitably skilled and qualified practitioners.
- To increase patient satisfaction with quick access to expert care.
- To help patients learn skills to improve and retain their health.
- To free up GP time to work with other patients.
- To deliver the programme for 700 patients.
Results
The results of the pilot were analysed by Social and Market Research, who produced this report.
The findings can be summarised as follows:
Following the pilot, 80% of patients reported an improvement in their symptoms, 64% took less time off work and 55% reduced their use of painkillers.
In the pilot, 713 patients with a range of ages and demographic backgrounds and either physical or mental health conditions were referred to various complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies via nine GP practices in Belfast and Londonderry. Patients assessed their own health and wellbeing pre and post therapy and GPs and CAM practitioners also rated patients’ responses to treatment and the overall effectiveness of the scheme.
Health improvement
• 81% of patients reported an improvement in their physical health
• 79% reported an improvement in their mental health
• 84% of patients linked an improvement in their health and wellbeing directly to their CAM treatment
• In 65% of patient cases, GPs documented a health improvement, correlating closely to patient-reported improvements
• 94% of patients said they would recommend CAM to another patient with their condition
• 87% of patient indicated a desire to continue with their CAM treatment
Painkillers and medication
• Half of GPs reported prescribing less medication and all reported that patients had indicated to them that they needed less
• 62% of patients reported suffering from less pain
• 55% reported using less painkillers following treatment
• Patients using medication reduced from 75% before treatment to 61% after treatment
• 44% of those taking medication before treatment had reduced their use afterwards
Health service and social benefits
• 24% of patients who used health services prior to treatment (i.e. primary and secondary care, accident and emergency) reported using the services less after treatment
• 65% of GPs reported seeing the patient less following the CAM referral
• Half of GPs said the scheme had reduced their workload and 17% reported a financial saving for their practice
• Half of GPs said their patients were using secondary care services less.
Impressed? Well, in case you are, please consider this:
- there was no control group
- therefore it is not possible to attribute any of the outcomes to the alternative therapies offered
- they could have been due to placebo-effects
- or to the natural history of the disease
- or to regression towards the mean
- or to social desirability
- or to many other factors which are unrelated to the alternative treatments provided
- most outcome measures were not objectively verified
- the patients were self-selected
- they would all have had conventional treatments in parallel
- this ‘trial’ was of such poor quality that its findings were never published in a peer-reviewed journal
- this was not a ‘trial’ but a ‘pilot study’
- pilot studies are not normally for measuring outcomes but for testing the feasibility of a proper trial
- the research expertise of the investigators was close to zero
- the scientific community merely had pitiful smiles for this ‘trial’ when it was published
- neither Northern Ireland nor any other region implemented the programme despite its “spectacularly good results”.
So, is the whole ‘trial’ story an utterly irrelevant old hat?
Certainly not! Its true significance does not lie in the fact that a few amateurs are trying to push bogus treatments into the NHS via the flimsiest pseudo-research of the century. The true significance, I think, is that it shows how Prince Charles, once again, oversteps the boundaries of his constitutional role.
The question whether infant colic can be effectively treated with manipulative therapies might seem rather trivial – after all, this is a benign condition which the infant quickly grows out of. However, the issue becomes a little more tricky, if we consider that it was one of the 6 paediatric illnesses which were at the centre of the famous libel case of the BCA against my friend and co-author Simon Singh. At the time, Simon had claimed that there was ‘not a jot of evidence’ for claiming that chiropractic was an effective treatment of infant colic, and my systematic review of the evidence strongly supported his statement. The BCA eventually lost their libel case and with it the reputation of chiropractic. Now a new article on this intriguing topic has become available; do we have to reverse our judgements?
The aim of this new systematic review was to evaluate the efficacy or effectiveness of manipulative therapies for infantile colic. Six RCTs of chiropractic, osteopathy or cranial osteopathy alone or in conjunction with other interventions were included with a total of 325 infants. Of the 6 included studies, 5 were “suggestive of a beneficial effect” and one found no evidence of benefit. Combining all the RCTs suggested that manipulative therapies had a significant effect. The average crying time was reduced by an average of 72 minutes per day. This effect was sustained for studies with a low risk of selection bias and attrition bias. When analysing only those studies with a low risk of performance bias (i.e. parental blinding) the improvement in daily crying hours was no longer statistically significant.
The quality of the studies was variable. There was a generally low risk of selection bias but a high risk of performance bias. Only one of the studies recorded adverse events and none were encountered.
From these data, the authors drew the following conclusion: Parents of infants receiving manipulative therapies reported fewer hours crying per day than parents whose infants did not and this difference was statistically significant. Most studies had a high risk of performance bias due to the fact that the assessors (parents) were not blind to who had received the intervention. When combining only those trials with a low risk of such performance bias the results did not reach statistical significance.
Does that mean that chiropractic does work for infant colic? No, it does not!
The first thing to point out is that the new systematic review included not just RCTs of chiropractic but also osteopathy and cranio-sacral therapy.
The second important issue is that the effects disappear, once performance bias is being accounted for which clearly shows that the result is false positive.
The third relevant fact is that the majority of the RCTs were of poor quality. The methodologically best studies were negative.
And the fourth thing to note is that only one study mentioned adverse effects, which means that the other 5 trials were in breach of one of rather elementary research ethics.
What makes all of this even more fascinating is the fact that the senior author of the new publication, George Lewith, is the very expert who advised the BCA in their libel case against Simon Singh. He seems so fond of his work that he even decided to re-publish it using even more misleading language than before. It is, of course, far from me to suggest that his review was an attempt to white-wash the issue of chiropractic ‘bogus’ claims. However, based on the available evidence, I would have formulated conclusions which are more than just a little different from his; something like this perhaps:
The current best evidence suggests that the small effects that emerge when we pool the data from mostly unreliable studies are due to bias and therefore not real. This systematic review therefore fails to show that manipulative therapies are effective. It furthermore points to a serious breach of research ethics by the majority of researchers in this field.
The mechanisms thorough which spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) exerts its alleged clinical effects are not well established. A new study investigated the effects of subject expectation on clinical outcomes.
Sixty healthy subjects underwent quantitative sensory testing to their legs and low backs. They were randomly assigned to receive a positive, negative, or neutral expectation instructional set regarding the effects of a spe cific SMT technique on pain perception. Following the instructional set, all subjects received SMT and underwent repeat sensory tests.
No inter-group differences in pain response were present in the lower extremity following SMT. However, a main effect for hypoalgesia was present. A significant interaction was present between change in pain perception and group assignment in the low back with participants receiving a negative expectation instructional set demonstrating significant hyperalgesia.
The authors concluded that this study provides preliminary evidence for the influence of a non- specific effect (expectation) on the hypoalgesia associated with a single session of SMT in normal subjects. We replicated our previous findings of hypoalgesia in the lower extremity associated with SMT to the low back. Additionally, the resultant hypoalgesia in the lower extremity was independent of an expectation instructional set directed at the low back. Conversely, participants receiving a negative expectation instructional set demonstrated hyperalgesia in the low back following SMT which was not observed in those receiving a positive or neutral instructional set.
More than 10 years ago, we addressed a similar issue by conducting a systematic review of all sham-controlled trials of SMT. Specifically, we wanted to summarize the evidence from sham-controlled clinical trials of SMT. Eight studies fulfilled our inclusion/exclusion criteria. Three trials (two on back pain and one on enuresis) were judged to be burdened with serious methodological flaws. The results of the three most rigorous studies (two on asthma and one on primary dysmenorrhea) did not suggest that SMT leads to therapeutic responses which differ from an inactive sham-treatment. We concluded that sham-controlled trials of SMT are sparse but feasible. The most rigorous of these studies suggest that SMT is not associated with clinically relevant specific therapeutic effects.
Taken together, these two articles provide intriguing evidence to suggest that SMT is little more than a theatrical placebo. Given the facts that SMT is neither cheap nor devoid of risks, the onus is now on those who promote SMT, e.g. chiropractors, osteopaths and physiotherapists, to show that this is not true.
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.
A meta-analysis compared the effectiveness of spinal manipulation therapies (SMT), medical management, physical therapies, and exercise for acute and chronic low back pain. Studies were chosen based on inclusion in prior evidence syntheses. Effect sizes were converted to standardized mean effect sizes and probabilities of recovery. Nested model comparisons isolated non-specific from treatment effects. Aggregate data were tested for evidential support as compared to shams.
The results suggest that, of 84% acute pain variance, 81% was from non-specific factors and 3% from treatment. No treatment was better than sham. Most acute results were within 95% confidence bands of that predicted by natural history alone. For chronic pain, 66% out of 98% was non-specific, but treatments influenced 32% of outcomes. Chronic pain treatments also fitted within 95% confidence bands as predicted by natural history. The evidential support for treating chronic back pain as compared to sham groups was weak, but chronic pain appeared to respond to SMT, while whole systems of chiropractic management did not.
The authors of this intriguing paper conclude: Meta-analyses can extract comparative effectiveness information from existing literature. The relatively small portion of outcomes attributable to treatment explains why past research results fail to converge on stable estimates. The probability of treatment superiority between treatment arms was equivalent to that expected by random selection. Treatments serve to motivate, reassure, and calibrate patient expectations – features that might reduce medicalization and augment self-care. Exercise with authoritative support is an effective strategy for acute and chronic low back pain.
This essentially indicates that none of these treatments for low back pain are convincingly effective. In turn this means we might as well stop using them. Alternatively, we could opt for the therapy that carries the least risks and cost. As the authors point out, this treatment is exercise.
It almost goes without saying that alternative practitioners contribute importantly to the ‘sea of misinformation’ about alternative medicine. Again, I could write books about this subject but have to refrain myself and therefore will merely put quick spotlights on several types of practitioners, mostly drawing from my own research on these subjects.
Acupuncturists
A survey of more than 9000 patients of U.K. non-medically trained acupuncturists showed that a considerable number had received advice from their therapists about prescribed medicines. Since these acupuncturists hold no medical qualifications, they are not qualified to issue such advice. It is therefore clear to me that the advice given is likely to be misleading. In 2000, we directly asked the U.K. acupuncturists’ advice about electro-acupuncture treatment for smoking cessation, a treatment which we previously had identified to be ineffective. The advice we received was frequently not based on current best evidence and some of it also raised serious safety concerns (Schmidt, K., & Ernst, E. Internet advice by acupuncturists—a risk factor for cardiovascular patients? Perfusion,2002, 15: 44-50. Article not Medline-listed).
Chiropractors
Many chiropractors from the UK and other countries make unsustainable therapeutic claims on their websites. In 2002, at the height of the ‘‘MMR scare’’ in Britain, we conducted a study revealing that a sizable proportion of U.K. chiropractors advised mothers against having the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) jab for their children. A survey of the U.K. chiropractors demonstrated that an alarming percentage of the U.K. chiropractors fail to provide advice about the risks of spinal manipulation before commencing treatment. As these risks are, in fact, considerable, this behaviour amounts to misinformation and is an obvious violation of medical ethics.
Osteopaths
With osteopaths, it is a very similar story; the main difference is that there are far less investigations than for chiropractors. This may be due to the fact that, in the US, osteopaths are not alternative but conventional clinicians with much the same training and skills as proper doctors. But in Europe, they are strictly alternative and make as many bogus claims as chiropractors. Systematic investigations are rare, but I only need to remind us of my recent blog-post where I pointed out that:
Most osteopaths treat children for a wide range of conditions and claim that their interventions are helpful. They believe that children are prone to structural problems which can be corrected by their interventions. Here is an example from just one of the numerous promotional websites on this topic:
STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS, such as those affecting the proper mobility and function of the body’s framework, can lead to a range of problems. These may include:
- Postural – such as scoliosis
- Respiratory – such as asthma
- Manifestations of brain injury – such as cerebral palsy and spasticity
- Developmental – with delayed physical or intellectual progress, perhaps triggering learning behaviour difficulties
- Infections – such as ear and throat infections or urinary disturbances, which may be recurrent.
OSTEOPATHY can assist in the prevention of health problems, helping children to make a smooth transition into normal, healthy adult life.
Herbalists
Encouraging evidence exists for some specific herbs in the treatment of some specific conditions. Yet, virtually no good evidence exists to suggest that the prescriptions of individualized herbal mixtures by traditional herbalists across the globe generate more good than harm. Despite this lack of evidence, herbalists do not seem to offer this information voluntarily to his or her patients. When we directly asked the UK herbalists for advice on a clinical case, we found that it was ‘‘misleading at best and dangerous at worst’’ . In other words, herbalists misinform their patients and the public about the value of their treatments.
Homeopaths
Many non-medically trained homeopaths advise their clients against the immunization of children. Instead, these practitioners often recommend using ‘‘homeopathic vaccinations’’ for which no good evidence exists. For instance, the vice-chair of the board of directors of ‘‘The Society of Homeopaths’’ had a site with the following statements: ‘‘Homeopathic alternatives to children’s immunisation are now available.’’ ‘‘Our clinic offers alternative immunisation programmes for the whole family.’’ Such statements amounts to misinformation which puts children’s health at risk.
Other alternative practitioners
I have chosen the above-listed professions almost at random and could have selected any other type as well. Arguably, all alternative practitioners who employ unproven treatments – and that must be the vast majority – misinform their patients to some extend. The only way to avoid this is to say: ‘look, I am going to give you a therapy for which there is no good evidence – I hope you don’t mind’. If they did that, they would be out of business in a flash. It follows, I think, that being in business is tantamount to misleading patients.
And there is, of course, another way of misinforming patients which is often forgotten yet very important: withholding essential information. In all of health care, informed consent is a ‘sine qua non’. Alternative practitioners very rarely obtain informed consent from their patients. The reason seems obvious (see above). I would argue that not informing people when they should be informed is a form of misinformation.
In this context, it is worth mentioning an investigation we did in 2009: We obtained the ethical codes of the following bodies: Association of Naturopathic Practitioners, Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine (UK), Ayurvedic Practitioners Association, British Acupuncture Council, Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, European Herbal Practitioners Association, General Chiropractic Council, General Osteopathic Council, General Regulatory Council for Complementary Therapies, National Institute of Medical Herbalists, Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine, Society of Homeopaths, UK Healers, Unified Register of Herbal Practitioners. We then extracted the statements from these codes referring to evidence-based practice (EBP). The results showed that only the General Chiropractic Council, the General Osteopathic Council and the General Regulatory Council for Complementary Therapies oblige their members to adopt EBP.
Conclusion
It seems that misinformation is an alternative practitioner’s daily bread. Without it, alternative therapists would need to confine their practice to the few treatments/conditions for which the evidence is positive. If they ever followed this strategy, they would hardly be able to earn a living.
Did I previously imply that osteopaths are not very research-active? Shame on me!
Here are two brand-new studies by osteopaths and they both seem to show that their treatments work.
Impressed?
Well, perhaps we better have a closer look at them before we start praising osteopathic research efforts.
THE FIRST STUDY
Researchers from the ‘European Institute for Evidence Based Osteopathic Medicine’ in Chieti, Italy, investigated the effect of osteopathic manipulative therapy (OMT) on the length of hospital-stay (LOHS) in premature infants. They conducted an RCT on 110 preterm newborns admitted to a single specialised unit. Thus the subjects with a gestational age between 28 and 38 weeks were randomized to receive either just routine care, or routine care with OMT for the period of hospitalization. Endpoints were differences in LOHS and daily weight gain. The results showed a mean difference in LOHS between the OMT and the control group: -5.906 days (95% C.I. -7.944, -3.869; p<0.001). However, OMT was not associated with any change in daily weight gain.
The authors’ conclusion was bold: OMT may have an important role in the management of preterm infants hospitalization.
THE SECOND STUDY
The second investigation suggested similarly positive effects of OMT on LOHS in a different setting. Using a retrospective cohort study, US osteopaths wanted to determine whether there is a relationship between post-operative use of OMT and post-operative outcomes in gastrointestinal surgical patients, including time to flatus, clear liquid diet, and bowel movement [all indicators for the length of the post-operative ileus] as well as LOHS. They thus assessed the records of 55 patients who underwent a major gastrointestinal operation in a hospital that had been routinely offering OMT to its patients. The analyses showed that 17 patients had received post-operative OMT and 38 had not.The two groups were similar in terms of all variables the researchers managed to assess. The time to bowel movement and to clear liquid diet did not differ significantly between the groups. The mean time to flatus was 4.7 days in the non-OMT group and 3.1 days in the OMT group (P=.035). The mean post-operative hospital LOHS was also reduced significantly with OMT, from 11.5 days in the non-OMT group to 6.1 days in the OMT group (P=.006).
The authors concluded that OMT applied after a major gastrointestinal operation is associated with decreased time to flatus and decreased postoperative hospital LOHS.
WHAT SHOULD WE MAKE OF THESE RESULTS?
Some people may have assumed that OMT is for bad backs; these two studies imply, however, that it can do much more. If the findings are correct, they have considerable implications: shortening the time patients have to spend in hospital would not only decrease individual suffering, it would also save us all tons of money! But do these results hold water?
The devil’s advocate in me cannot help but being more than a little sceptical. I fail to see how OMT might shorten LOHS; it just does not seem plausible! Moreover, some of the results seem too good to be true. Could there be any alternative explanations for the observed findings?
The first study, I think, might merely demonstrate that more time spent handling premature babies provides a powerful developmental stimulus. Therefore the infants are quicker ready to leave hospital compared to those children who did not receive this additional boost. But the effect might not at all be related to OMT per se; if, for instance, the parents had handled their children for the same amount of time, the outcome would probably have been quite similar, possibly even better.
The second study is not an RCT and therefore it tells us little about cause and effect. We might speculate, for instance, that those patients who elected to have OMT were more active, had lived healthier lives, adhered more rigorously to a pre-operative diet, or differed in other variables from those patients who chose not to bother with OMT. Again, the observed difference in the duration of the post-operative ileus and consequently the LOHS would be entirely unrelated to OMT.
I suggest therefore to treat these two studies with more than just a pinch of salt. Before hospitals all over the world start employing osteopaths right, left and centre in order to shorten their average LOHS, we might be well advised to plan and conduct a trial that avoids the pitfalls of the research so far. I would bet a fiver that, once we do a proper independent replication, we will find that both investigations did, in fact, generate false positive results.
My conclusion from all this is simple: RESEARCH CAN SOMETIMES BE MISLEADING, AND POOR QUALITY RESEARCH IS ALMOST INVARIABLY MISLEADING.
On this blog, we have repeatedly discussed the serious adverse effects of Spinal Manipulative Therapies (SMT) as frequently administered by chiropractors, osteopaths and physiotherapists. These events mostly relate to vascular accidents involving vertebral or carotid arterial dissections after SMT of the upper spine. Lower down, the spine is anatomically far less vulnerable which, however, does not mean that injuries in this region after SMT are impossible. They have been reported repeatedly but, to the best of my knowledge, there is no up-to-date review of such events – that is until recently.
Australian researchers have just filled this gap by publishing a systematic review aimed at systematically reviewing all reports of serious adverse events following lumbo-pelvic SMT. They conducted electronic searches in MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and The Cochrane Library up to January 12, 2012. Article-selection was performed by two independent reviewers using predefined criteria. Cases were included involving individuals 18 years or older who experienced a serious adverse event following SMT applied to the lumbar spine or pelvis by any type of provider (chiropractic, medical, physical therapy, osteopathic, layperson). A serious adverse event was defined as an untoward occurrence that resulted in death or was life threatening, required hospital admission, or resulted in significant or permanent disability. Reports published in English, German, Dutch, and Swedish were included.
The searches identified a total of 2046 papers, and 41 articles reporting a total of 77 cases were included in the review. Important case details were frequently missing in these reports, such as descriptions of SMT technique, the pre-SMT presentation of the patient, the specific details of the adverse event, time from SMT to the adverse event, factors contributing to the adverse event, and clinical outcome.
The 77 adverse events consisted of cauda equina syndrome (29 cases); lumbar disk herniation (23 cases); fracture (7 cases); haematoma or haemorrhagic cyst (6 cases); and12 cases of neurologic or vascular compromise, soft tissue trauma, muscle abscess formation, disrupted fracture healing, and oesophageal rupture.
The authors’ conclusion was that this systematic review describes case details from published articles that describe serious adverse events that have been reported to occur following SMT of the lumbo-pelvic region. The anecdotal nature of these cases does not allow for causal inferences between SMT and the events identified in this review.
This review is timely and sound. Yet several factors need consideration:
1) The search strategy was thorough but it is unlikely that all relevant articles were retrieved because these papers are often well-hidden in obscure and not electronically listed journals.
2) It is laudable that the authors included languages other than English but it would have been preferable to impose no language restrictions at all.
3) Under-reporting of adverse events is a huge problem, and it is anyone’s guess how large it really is [we have shown that, in our research it was precisely 100%]
4) This means that the 77 cases, which seem like a minute number, could in reality be 770 or 7700 or 77000; nobody can tell.
Cauda equina (horse tail) syndrome was the most frequent and most serious adverse event reported. This condition is caused by nerve injury at the lower end of the spinal canal. Symptoms can include leg pain along the sciatic nerve, severe back pain, altered or loss of sensation over the area around the genitals, anus and inner thighs as well as urine retention or incontinence and faecal incontinence. The condition must be treated as an emergency and usually requires surgical decompression of the injured nerves.
Disk herniation, the second most frequent adverse event, is an interesting complication of SMT. Most therapists using SMT would probably claim (no, I have no reference for that speculation!) that they can effectively treat herniated disks with SMT. The evidence for this claim is, as far as I know, non-existent. In view of the fact that SMT can actually cause a disk to herniate, I wonder whether SMT should not be contra-indicated for this condition. I am sure there will be some discussion about this question following this post.
The authors make a strong point about the fact that case reports never allow causal inference. One can only agree with this notion. However, the precautionary principle in medicine also means that, if case reports provide reasonable suspicion that an intervention might led to adverse-effects, we need to be careful and should warn patients of this possibility. It also means that it is up to the users of SMT to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that SMT is safe.
According to the UK General Osteopathic Council, osteopathy is a system of diagnosis and treatment for a wide range of medical conditions. It works with the structure and function of the body, and is based on the principle that the well-being of an individual depends on the skeleton, muscles, ligaments and connective tissues functioning smoothly together.
To an osteopath, for your body to work well, its structure must also work well. So osteopaths work to restore your body to a state of balance, where possible without the use of drugs or surgery. Osteopaths use touch, physical manipulation, stretching and massage to increase the mobility of joints, to relieve muscle tension, to enhance the blood and nerve supply to tissues, and to help your body’s own healing mechanisms. They may also provide advice on posture and exercise to aid recovery, promote health and prevent symptoms recurring.
In case this sounds a bit vague to you, and in case you wonder what this “wide range of conditions” might be, rest assured, you are not alone. So let’s try to be a little more concrete and clear up some of the confusion around this profession. There are two very different types of osteopaths: US osteopaths are virtually identical with conventionally trained physicians; their qualification is equivalent to those of medical practitioners and they can, for instance, specialise to become GPs or neurologists or surgeons etc. Elsewhere, osteopaths are non-medically qualified alternative practitioners. In the UK, they are regulated by statute, in other counties not. And as to the “wide range of conditions”, I am not aware of any disease or symptom for which the evidence is convincing.
Osteopaths most commonly treat patients suffering from Chronic Non-Specific Low Back Pain (CNSLBP) using a set of non-drug interventions, particularly manual therapies such as spinal mobilisation and manipulation. The question is how well are these techniques supported by reliable evidence. To answer it, we must not cherry-pick our evidence but we need to consider the totality of the reliable studies; in other words, we need an up-to-date systematic review. Such an assessment of clinical research into osteopathic intervention for CNSLBP was recently published by Australian experts.
A thorough search of the literature in multiple electronic databases was undertaken, and all articles were included that reported clinical trials; had adult participants; tested the effectiveness and/or efficacy of osteopathic manual therapies applied by osteopaths, and had a study condition of CNSLBP. The quality of the trials was assessed using the Cochrane criteria. Initial searches located 809 papers, 772 of which were excluded on the basis of abstract alone. The remaining 37 papers were subjected to a detailed analysis of the full text, which resulted in 35 further articles being excluded. There were thus only two studies assessing the effectiveness of manual therapies applied by osteopaths in adult patients with CNSLBP. The results of one trial suggested that the osteopathic intervention was similar in effect to a sham intervention, and the other implies equivalence of effect between osteopathic intervention, exercise and physiotherapy.
I guess, this comes as a bit of a surprise to many consumers who have been told over and over again by osteopaths and their supporters that the evidence is sound. Personally, I am not at all surprised because, two years ago, we published a similar review, albeit with a wider spectrum of conditions, namely any type of musculoskeletal pain. We managed to include a total of 16 RCTs. Five of them suggested that osteopathy leads to a significantly stronger reduction of musculoskeletal pain than a range of control interventions. However, 11 RCTs indicated that osteopathy, compared to controls, generates no change in musculoskeletal pain. At the time, we felt that these data fail to produce compelling evidence for the effectiveness of osteopathy as a treatment of musculoskeletal pain.
This lack of convincing evidence is in sharp contrast to the image of osteopaths as back pain specialists. The UK General Osteopathic council, for instance, sates that Osteopaths’ patients include the young, older people, manual workers, office professionals, pregnant women, children and sports people. Patients seek treatment for a wide variety of conditions, including back pain…In addition, thousands of websites try to convince the consumer that osteopathy is a well-proven therapy for chronic low back pain – not to mention the many other conditions for which the evidence is even less sound.
As so often in alternative medicine, these claims seem to be based more on wishful thinking than on reliable evidence. And as so often, the victims of bogus claims are the consumers who are being misled into making wrong therapeutic decisions, wasting money, and delaying recovery from illness.
