An article from the site Medical News Today discussed a study, which included adult-aged individuals who had “back-related leg pain” (such as sciatica) for 4 weeks or more. The individuals in the study where grouped into two groups, receiving a combination of chiropractic care (i.e., spinal manipulation therapy), home exercise and advice. The goal of the study was to determine if the combination of chiropractic care and home exercise and advice was a more effective treatment in relieving sciatica-related leg pain in the short-term and long-term.
Chiropractic care and exercise provide short-term relief of back-related leg pain
In the short term, patients who received chiropractic care coupled with home exercise and advice reported greater reductions in back-related leg pain (BRLP) than those who received home exercise…”
The study found that the combination of chiropractic care with home exercise and advice was more effective than the group that received only home exercise and advice. Moreover, the study concluded that the combination of treatments were effective in the short-term (i.e., for 12 weeks) as compared to the long-term (i.e., 52 weeks). So the jury is still out for long-term effects of such treatments. However, since it was only a 12-week study, I wonder if the results of the study would be different if the treatments were carried over a 52-week period? That is, would the individuals, that received a combination of chiropractic care with home exercise and advice for 52 weeks, report more favorable results a year or two after that regarding their sciatica-related leg pain?
