Short-term effect of spinal manipulation on pain perception, spinal mobility, and full height recovery in male subjects with degenerative disk disease

Post on September 13, 2014 by André Broussard, D.C.

Short Term Effects of Spinal Manipulation

The Study: Short-term effect of spinal manipulation on pain perception, spinal mobility, and full height recovery in male subjects with degenerative disk disease: a randomized controlled trial.

The Facts:

  • The treatment was high velocity low amplitude manipulation of the L5-S1 area.
  • The subjects were men with degenerative joint disease.
  • The authors sought to determine the short term effect of treatment on these subjects on the following factors: “spinal mobility, pain perception, neural mechancosensitivity and full height recovery”. (They indicated that they used “passive straight-leg raise ROM” as a measure of observing neural mechanosensitivity with the end point of the test being the start of the patient’s pain or discomfort. The full height recovery was done with a Stadiometer in which the person’s height is measured 90 seconds after they stand up.)
  • Subjects were divided into both a treatment and a control group.
  • The type of manipulation was a L5-S1 pull move (side posture).
  • The treatment group received just one manipulation.
  • The treatment group showed a significant improvement in all the variables studied following the single manipulation.
  • One of the outcomes was to measure pre and post manipulation height and the manipulation group showed an increase in height following the manipulation of 3.98mm plus or minus 1.46mm.
  • Following manipulation there was “an immediate reduction in self-perceived LBP.

Take Home:

The treatment subjects improved in the variables studied following a single side posture manipulation.

Reviewer’s Comments:

I think we’ve come to expect studies to show improvement in pain and spinal motion. This one also showed an increase in height and I found that quite interesting.

Reviewer:Roger Coleman DC

Editor: Mark R. Payne DC

Reference:Viera-Pellenz F, Oliva-Pascual-Vaca A, Rodriguez-Blanco C, Heredia-Rizo AM, Ricard F, Almazan-Campos G. Short-term effect of spinal manipulation on pain perception, spinal mobility, and full height recovery in male subjects with degenerative disk disease: a randomized controlled trial. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2014;95:1613-9

Link to Abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24862763

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