The effect of spinal manipulative therapy on pain relief and function in patients with chronic low back pain: an individual participant data meta-analysis

Review written by Robin Kerr info

Key Points

  1. Moderate quality evidence suggests that spinal manipulative therapy results in similar benefits to other guideline recommended interventions for chronic low back pain (LBP).
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BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE

Low back pain (LBP) is the number one cause of pain and disability worldwide. One treatment used by clinicians for LBP is spinal manipulation or mobilization, collectively known as spinal manipulative therapy (SMT).

A prior 2019 review (1) using aggregate analysis found that SMT provided similar benefits to other guideline recommendations for chronic low back pain (CLBP). The individual participant data (IPD) meta-analyses in the current paper allowed for a more accurate estimate of the treatment effect of SMT for chronic low back pain.

Low back pain is the number one cause of pain and disability worldwide.
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This paper points towards the contextual and complex interactions that occur in manual therapy.

METHODS

This IPD meta-analysis was conducted by an international group of esteemed researchers from the health research, chiropractic and physiotherapy spheres. RCTs from 2000-2016 examining the effect of SMT in adults with CLBP versus any comparators were analysed via the GRADE

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