Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research and partners receive 3-year grant to study veterans with musculoskeletal pain

September 30, 2014 — Scientists at the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research (PCCR), along with partner organizations, have been awarded a $718,241 grant by the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The grant will fund a three-year research planning project to address questions about how chiropractic care might be best integrated into existing Veterans Health Administration (VHA) clinical practice guidelines for veterans with a combination of musculoskeletal pain and mental health conditions.

“Chiropractic has been demonstrated to be both effective and safe in the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders,” said Principal Investigator Christine Goertz, DC, PhD, Palmer College of Chiropractic’s vice chancellor for research and health policy. “This led the DoD/VA Pain Management Task Force to recommend chiropractic as a Tier 1 treatment within its comprehensive pain-management program. However, the appropriate role for chiropractic in veteran populations, especially those with musculoskeletal pain and mental health disorders, requires further investigation.”

U.S. military veterans report high levels of musculoskeletal pain, including back pain, neck pain, and headache, and have high rates of many mental-health conditions. The study team will:

• Develop an integrative-care model that includes doctors of chiropractic in multidisciplinary teams treating patients with both musculoskeletal pain and mental-health conditions in the VHA.

• Tailor existing chiropractic guidelines and best practices to link with current VHA pain-management initiatives.

• Conduct a pilot clinical trial of this integrated-care model in caring for veterans with both musculoskeletal pain and mental health conditions.

Partner organizations with the PCCR in this project are the University of Iowa, the Iowa City VA Health Care Systems, the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, and the Minneapolis VA Health Care System.

The Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research, headquartered on the Palmer College of Chiropractic campus in Davenport, Iowa, is the largest institutional chiropractic research effort in the world. The PCCR has the largest research budget in a chiropractic college, receiving grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration and the Department of Defense. Since 2000, these grants have totaled approximately $36 million.

Source: Palmer College of Chiropractic