Troubled with neck pain in Aloha/Beaverton, OR? Did you know that chiropractic care has been shown to be the most cost-effective way to help you recover? Dr. Bhasin is here to help you. Give our office a call at (503) 642-2845 today.
Over the years, we've helped many people in Aloha/Beaverton, OR heal from persistent neck pain. This isn't unusual, as research demonstrates that chiropractic care leads to significant improvements for 94% of neck pain patients. But how does chiropractic compare to other conservative therapies in the management of neck pain?
To answer this question, it's useful to look back at an important study from 2003 printed in the British Medical Journal. The study investigated various conservative treatments and concluded that manual therapy was the most cost-effective choice for neck pain.
Researchers from the Netherlands were interested in evaluating not only the costs related with manual therapy but how efficiently manual therapy provided relief when compared to other treatments. They randomly assigned 183 patients with acute neck pain to receive care from manual therapists (MT), physiotherapists (PT), or general practitioners (GP).
Patients receiving manual therapy had the quickest recovery rate. After seven weeks of treatment, 68% of the MT group had recovered, compared to 51% of the PT group and 36% of the GP group. These variances in improvement rates were still statistically significant after 26 weeks but not after 52 weeks.
To compute costs of treatments, the researchers considered direct costs such as visits to the healthcare provider and the costs of prescription medications, in addition to indirect costs like work absenteeism and travel time. The manual therapy group had significantly lower costs, and patients only spent a third of the cost compared to patients in the PT and GP groups. On average, manual therapy patients had about $611 in costs compared to $1773 in the physiotherapy group and $1885 in the general practitioner group (or 447 euros, 1297 euros, and 1379 euros, respectively). Only 9 patients in the MT group documented missed work due to neck pain, compared to 12 in the PT group and 15 in the GP group.
The decreased cost likely stemmed from the fact that MT patients were using significantly less prescription medications and required fewer treatment interventions due to quicker recovery rates. The authors concluded that manual therapy, specifically spinal mobilization, is less costly and more effective at treating neck pain than physiotherapy or care from a general practitioner.
Dr. Bhasin has worked with many people who have suffered from neck pain. If you live in Aloha/Beaverton, OR and would like to stop suffering from chronic neck pain, give our office a call at (503) 642-2845 for a consultation.
Korthals-de Bos IB, et al. Cost effectiveness of physiotherapy, manual therapy, and general practitioner. British Medical Journal 2003;326:911.
Dr. Bhasin grew up in Southern California and did her undergraduate work in pre-med at California State University Northridge, as well as Humboldt State University in California. Dr. Bhasin attended the University of Western States in Portland Oregon where she earned her Doctor of Chiropractic Degree. Dr. Bhasin has passed her National boards and her State Boards. Dr. Bhasin loves helping people and finds great joy helping injured people get out of pain and get their life back again. She has helped thousands of patients.
