A Comparison of Osteopathic Spinal Manipulation with Standard Care for Patients with Low Back Pain

The treatment of low back pain remains controversial in spite of a growing number of attempts to evaluate different therapeutic interventions and to develop clinical guidelines. 1 – 4 One stumbling block is the scientific evidence on which the guidelines are based. The results of randomized trials of some therapeutic interventions have been published, but the methodologic quality of many such studies is low. 5 , 6 Many of the studies involve manual treatment of the spine (through manipulation or mobilization); millions of patients receive manual treatment every year. Spinal manipulation as a treatment for back pain has been practiced for centuries. Over the . . .