Lage rugpijn en alternatieve geneeskunde

Veel patienten met chronische lage rugpijn klachten wenden zich tot een alternatief therapeut. De chiropractie en de manueel therapeut worden waarschijnlijk het frequentst bezocht. Een enquete in Amerika onderzocht dat.

DE meest gevolgde therapie vormen waren zoals te verwachten was: acupunctuur, kraken, massage, meditatie en T’ai Chi. De personen die geinterviewd werden gaven aan dat ze het liefst een behandeling ondergingen, in plaats van zelf actief te worden. De conculsies van de schrijvers van dit onderzoek was:

Except for chiropractic, knowledge about these therapies was low. Chiropractic and massage had been used by the largest fractions of respondents (54% and 38%, respectively), mostly for back pain (45% and 24%, respectively). Among prior users of specific CAM therapies for back pain, massage was rated most helpful. Users of chiropractic reported treatment-related significant discomfort, pain or harm" more often (23%) than users of other therapies (5–16%). Respondents expected massage would be most helpful (median of 7 on a 0 to 10 scale) and meditation least helpful (median of 3) in relieving their current pain. Most respondents indicated they would be "very likely" to try acupuncture, massage, or chiropractic for their back pain if they did not have to pay out of pocket and their physician thought it was a reasonable treatment option. 

Most patients in our sample were interested in trying options for treating chronic back pain that lie outside the conventional medical spectrum, even within the context of a clinical trial. This was true even among patients who had relatively little knowledge of or experience with the therapy. Given our limited knowledge about the effectiveness of most CAM therapies, there is a clear need for additional studies evaluating their effectiveness. Fortunately, our results suggest that researchers will not find it difficult to recruit patients interested in participating in clinical trials of many of the CAM therapies.

Bron

Sherman, K.J., Cherkin, D.C., Connelly, M.T., Erro, J., Savetsky, J.B., Davis, R.B. and Eisenberg, D.M. Complementary and alternative medical therapies for chronic low back pain: What treatments are patients willing to try?  BMC Complementary and alternative medicine, Volume: 4, Issue: (July 19, 2004), pp: 9