© 2003 BMJ Publishing Group & British Association of Sport and Exercise Medicine
LEADER
Back pain
Chiropractic spinal manipulation for back pain
1 Peninsula Medical School, Complementary Medicine, Universities of Plymouth and Exeter, 25 Victoria Park Road, Exeter EX2 4NT, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor Ernst;
Edzard.Ernst@pms.ac.uk
The effectiveness of chiropractic spinal manipulation for back pain is uncertain
Keywords: back pain; osteoporosis; spinal manipulation; chiropractic
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Sports medicine clinicians with varied training include joint mobilisation and manipulation among their therapeutic skills. Examples include chiropractors, physiotherapists, and osteopaths, not to mention the doctors and massage therapists who treat various joint pathologies. Although athletes rarely have osteoporosis, the broad field of sports medicine includes the use of exercise therapies and treatment of the musculoskeletal system in people of all ages. Therefore this leader focuses on the role of chiropractic joint manipulation.
Back pain sufferers from more than 60 countries consult chiropractors.1 A booklet by the British Chiropractic Association boldly states that "95% of back pain is mechanical in origin, and can be treated by a chiropractor in a primary care setting".2 Yet there are many who doubt such promotional statements. A recent, perhaps more sober, assessment of the data reads differently: "43 randomised trials of spinal manipulation for treatment of acute, subacute and chronic low back
2 Bone Health Research Group, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada and Osteoporosis Program, Children’s & Women’s Health Centre of British Columbia, 4500 Oak St, Vancouver, BC V6H 3N1, Canada; msran@cw.bc.ca
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This article has been cited by other articles:
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Shrier, I, Macdonald, D, Uchacz, G
(2006). A pilot study on the effects of pre-event manipulation on jump height and running velocity. Br. J. Sports. Med.
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[Abstract] [Full Text]
eLetters:
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- The "war" on chiropractors
- Alan C Breen, et al.
- BJSM Online, 6 Aug 2003 [Full text]
- Observations concerning chiropractic spinal manipulation for back pain a reply
- Peter W. McCarthy, et al.
- BJSM Online, 6 Nov 2003 [Full text]
- Authors' Reply: chiropractic spinal manipulation for back pain
- E Ernst, et al.
- BJSM Online, 18 Dec 2003 [Full text]
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