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Originally Posted by Fuzz
I'm curious, since you mentioned back pain...is there evidence chiropracty(?) is better than physiotherapy for outcomes in back pain issues?
From my limited knowledge, it seems chiropractors are happy to have you keep coming back for adjustments, whereas physio is more about giving you the tools to fix it yourself, and only going for a few months. I could be way off on that, I've only been to physio a couple times but it helped greatly. So I'm curious on how the 2 compare in addressing back pain.
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*Chiropractic
I wouldn't say better necessarily, but chiropractic seems to get some immediate pain relief faster. 6 month outcomes are virtually identical.
You are correct in that chiropractors want patients coming back compared to physios, which is problematic depending on the reason. Most of the time it's purely financially motivated. What you are talking about is called "maintenance care", and there's little evidence to suggest that it is beneficial. My personal recommendation for maintenance was always 6-8 weeks between visits in the absence of symptoms, or as needed should there be an exacerbation of symptoms. In my clinical experience, I found that those who didn't get some amount of maintenance care did have a relapse within the next calendar year. My thought is that those who get maintenance care are receiving a beneficial placebo effect mentally by taking regular care of their bodies and likely lowering the severity of pain should it arise, often to the point where they don't consider it anything more than a small twinge.
To me, that's good enough reason to get the care, even if it is a placebo effect. There's nothing wrong with placebo if it's known to provide patient benefits, and a lot of doctors are changing their bedside approach with patients to provide more placebo effect during a visit.
To answer your question, I have no problem if someone chose to see a physiotherapist if directed by their physician who gave them a diagnosis, but you need to see a doctor first as most physiotherapists are not trained extensively in diagnosis. Otherwise, they can go directly to a chiropractor who can diagnose and treat within the same visit, and if the symptoms are that severe, that short time window to treatment can be incredibly beneficial to the patient.
Why is it important to be diagnosed for simple back pain you ask? Simple. To rule out more severe conditions that may require emergency treatment. I would not trust a physiotherapist to diagnose because they are not liable should they miss something. Chiropractors ARE liable because it's in their scope of practice to diagnose or refer appropriately, so they have to be able to catch things that come through their office. If we're talking about which treatment is better? It's pretty much equal.
I hope that answers your question.