What do you expect from your
West Palm Beach chiropractic care of back pain? That question is huge. Research
is reporting that it plays
a role in back pain treatment outcome be the
treatment surgical or conservative. Chiropractic Care aspires
to listen to you and your expectations of our West Palm Beach back
pain treatment and share what our treatment’s outcomes have been in practice and in
research.
INFLUENTIAL EXPECTATIONS FOR BACK SURGERY OUTCOMES
A new research project scrutinized
patient and surgeon expectations of back surgery. Patients expected complete
relief and improvement of their back pain after lumbar spine surgery. Surgeons
expected improvement that ranged from a little to a lot dependant on the patient and his/her specific condition. Can you guess whose expectations were met? The surgeons’
expectations. A couple years after the back surgery, the patient-reported outcomes met the surgeon’s expectations.
The researchers stressed that effective communication about expectations
may well foster better outcomes. (1) That’s
why Chiropractic Care devotes time to each West Palm Beach
back pain patient early on in care, making sure the source of pain and its treatment plan are well-described.
If not, ask us!
AN ACCEPTABLE SYMPTOM STATE
If a patient doesn’t experience
the relief he/she desired from back surgery,
what is an “acceptable symptom state” for that back pain patient? What can he/she live with? For patients with chronic non-specific low back pain (with or
without active discopathy), 54% stated having an acceptable symptom
state at 1 month of care. Specifically, patient-reported acceptable symptoms involved
these: 47.5 for lumbar pain, 30.5 for radicular pain, 39.3 for
disability, 10.0 for anxiety, and 6.7 for depression. (2) Chiropractic Care realizes no pain is the preferred state and is prepared to talk
with our West Palm Beach chiropractic patients their options and potential
outcomes.
DECIDING ON TREATMENT OPTIONS
The question of back surgery is a big issue. Evidence-based medicine sees that the patient at the center of care. What is
the patient perspective of this care? How is the patient perspective regarded in treatment planning and choosing from available options? A recent paper indicated that the patient’s social, psychological, and other non-clinical
characteristics must be considered in planning care. (3)
One issue in the back-surgery decision that reportedly impacts
the decision and the outcome expectation is opioid use. Lower dose and shorter-time-taking
opioid use patients expected more complete improvement compared
with non-users. They also had higher
expectations of positive outcome than higher-dose opioid patients. (4) For a
lot of patients, the prospect of work is goal of back pain treatment which is positive
according to this new report on how back pain patient recovery
expectations influence clinical outcomes. A review of
60 studies found that a patient’s recovery expectations are
probably strongly associated with future work participation. (5) Chiropractic Care uses
effective, nonsurgical treatment of back pain to meet patient expectations once the research on outcomes for other back pain
sufferers is presented and absorbed. West Palm Beach chiropractic care keeps the back pain patient at its center.
CONTACT Chiropractic Care
Check out this PODCAST
with Dr. Anthony Galante on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr.
Michael Johnson as he explained how Cox®
Technic System of Spinal Pain Management and chiropractic treatment helped manage back pain for a patient who was adamant about not wanting back surgery.
Make your next West Palm Beach
chiropractic visit soon. Chiropractic Care invites you to ponder and answer the question of your
expectations for our treatment so that we can both be satisfied
with the outcome!