Zacariah Shannon, DC, from the American Chiropractic Association discusses a study that entails patients who are 65+ suffering from back pain can benefit from chiropractic care. The study involved patients who did medical care alone, both medical and chiropractic care, and uniquely perhaps, medical and chiropractic care where there was a collaboration between medical doctors and chiropractic doctors. The article writes “collaboration included shared health history, treatment plans and progress notes.”

The study went for 12 weeks with 131 older adults with low back pain.

All groups fared better. However in overall improvement with quality of life and low back pain, the groups who received chiropractic care improved significantly better than medical care group alone.

One of the most important points about the article is the implications behind the study. Shannon writes that the study is unique because older patients aren’t studied as often because “ageist attitudes leading to the beliefs that back pain is inevitable at a certain age and that it is not an important cocnern relative to other comorbidities (the simultaneous presence of two chronic diseases or conditions in a patient) are common reasons given by older adults for not seeking care.” This is important because older folks believe that their pain is the result of age which is not always the case.

Another example of why chiropractic care is good for any age. 🙂