Age or injury-related compression and inflammation of a cervical nerve root can be difficult to treat in a primary care practice. Medications are mostly ineffective, and imaging findings can often be misleading.
This study evaluated the improvement of patients either receiving SMT (spinal manipulative therapy) by a chiropractor, or nerve-root injections (CNRI). The results show that SMT dramatically outperformed CNRI in providing improvement at 3 months. Of particular interest was how the subset of patients with sub-acute and chronic pain (which is notoriously difficult to treat) had substantial benefits from chiropractic care.
Our practice is happy to accept referrals of your patients who are experiencing symptoms associated with cervical radiculopthy and are looking for non-pharmacological ways to find improvement.
“The research evidence for SMT as a treatment for patients with symptomatic cervical disk herniations is sparse, but slowly increasing, with a recent cohort outcomes study showing that more than 3/4 of patients with subacute and chronic symptoms reported clinically relevant improvement at 3 months after start of treatment.”
“86% of the SMT patients reported clinically relevant “improvement” at 3 months compared to 49% of CNRI patients.”
“Subacute/chronic patients treated with SMT were significantly more likely to report relevant “improvement” compared with CNRI patients.”
We believe patients have better outcomes when their health professionals
work together.
