September 29, 2017— This October, chiropractors across the country will bring attention to the importance of prevention in maintaining spinal health throughout one’s lifetime as part of National Chiropractic Health Month (NCHM) 2017.
This year’s campaign, “Back to Basics,” focuses on back health “basics”—simple health and injury prevention strategies to help maintain spinal health—and will highlight the growing body of research supporting a conservative approach to back pain treatment.
Back pain remains one of the most prevalent and disabling conditions worldwide. It is one of the most common reasons that patients visit their doctors, and one of the most common conditions for which doctors prescribe pain medications. Since the overuse and abuse of prescription opioid painkillers in the United States remains a major public health problem, it’s essential for health care consumers to understand that spinal manipulation and other non-drug treatments can relieve back pain and other common musculoskeletal conditions safely and effectively.
The American College of Physicians and other health care groups now support the use of conservative non-drug approaches to back pain before turning to riskier options such as prescription pain medications and surgery. In addition, the Joint Commission, which accredits all major hospital systems in the United States, released new pain management standards this summer that require hospitals to provide non-drug pain treatments.
“Almost everyone experiences back pain at some point in their lives, and more people are becoming interested in non-drug approaches to treatment,” says American Chiropractic Association (ACA) President David Herd, DC. “Chiropractors are well-equipped to treat back pain conservatively using a variety of non-drug therapies, such as spinal manipulation and massage, as well as counseling on injury prevention, ergonomics and strengthening exercises.”
National Chiropractic Health Month, a nationwide event occurring every October, raises public awareness of the benefits of chiropractic care and its natural, whole-person, patient-centered approach to health and wellness. For more information, visit www.acatoday.org/NCHM. To learn more about chiropractic and back pain, visit www.acatoday.org/patients.
