What do you expect from your
West Des Moines chiropractic care of back pain? That is a key question. Research
reports that it plays
a role in back pain treatment outcome whether that treatment is surgical or conservative. Executive Chiropractic of Iowa intends
to hear your expectations of our West Des Moines back
pain treatment and share the outcomes of our treatment
documented in practice and in
research.
INFLUENTIAL EXPECTATIONS FOR BACK SURGERY OUTCOMES
A recent research project scrutinized
patient and surgeon expectations of back surgery. Patients expected full
relief and improvement of their back pain after lumbar spine surgery. Surgeons
expected improvement that varied from a little to a lot depending
on the patient and his/her specific issues. Can you guess whose expectations were met? The surgeons’
expectations. A couple years after the back surgery, the outcomes
reported by patients met the surgeon’s expectations.
The researchers emphasized that effective communication about expectations
may well foster better outcomes. (1) That’s
why Executive Chiropractic of Iowa spends time with each West Des Moines
back pain patient at the beginning of care, ensuring
that the source of pain and its treatment plan are well-explained.
If not, ask us!
AN ACCEPTABLE SYMPTOM STATE
If a patient does not 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% reported 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) Executive Chiropractic of Iowa realizes no pain is the preferred state and is ready to discuss
with our West Des Moines chiropractic patients their options and possible
outcomes.
DECIDING ON TREATMENT OPTIONS
Deciding
whether to have back surgery is a big decision. Evidence-based medicine views
the patient as being the center of care. What is
the patient perspective of this care? How is the patient perspective taken
into consideration 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 taken into account 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 opposed to 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 encouraging
according to a new report on how back pain patient recovery
expectations impact clinical outcomes. A review of
60 studies found that a patient’s recovery expectations are
probably strongly associated with future work participation. (5) Executive Chiropractic of Iowa offers
effective, nonsurgical treatment of back pain to meet patient expectations once the research on outcomes for other back pain
sufferers is presented and understood. West Des Moines chiropractic care keeps the back pain patient at its center.
CONTACT Executive Chiropractic of Iowa
Check out this PODCAST
with Dr. Anthony Galante on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr.
Michael Johnson as he described how Cox®
Technic System of Spinal Pain Management and chiropractic treatment helped manage back pain for a patient who was absolutely
positive about not wanting back surgery.
Set your next West Des Moines
chiropractic visit today. Executive Chiropractic of Iowa wants to know your answer to the question of your
expectations for our treatment so that we can both be satisfied
with the outcome!