Low back pain (LBP) that keeps coming back or sticks around can be a real problem. Studies have shown that exercise, especially when combined with education, can help prevent new episodes or lessen the impact of this pain. Chiropractors have often used what’s known as Maintenance Care (MC) to help with these kinds of issues as a way to prevent problems in the long run. This article reviews a study that looked into how well Maintenance Care works to manage pain over time for people dealing with recurrent or persistent LBP, in the context of what could be termed a Nordic Maintenance Care Program approach to patient care.
This research was a practical study where the researchers didn’t know which patients were getting which treatment. It involved patients aged 18 to 65 with non-specific LBP who had initially improved with chiropractic treatment. After this initial treatment, patients were randomly assigned to either receive Maintenance Care or symptom-guided treatment (control group). The main thing the study looked at was the total number of days with bothersome LBP over 52 weeks. This was tracked weekly using text messages and analyzed with a statistical model.
The study included 328 participants, split into two groups. The results showed that the group receiving Maintenance Care experienced fewer days with bothersome LBP compared to those receiving symptom-guided treatment. Over the 12-month study, the Maintenance Care group reported about 12.8 fewer days with bothersome LBP compared to the control group. However, the Maintenance Care group also received about 1.7 more treatments on average. No serious negative effects were reported during the study.
In conclusion, for individuals with recurrent or persistent non-specific LBP who respond positively to initial chiropractic care, a nordic maintenance care program approach, or Maintenance Care, is more effective at reducing the total number of days with bothersome pain over a year compared to just treating symptoms as they arise. While it does involve more treatments, for selected patients, Maintenance Care should be considered as a valuable option for long-term prevention of low back pain issues.
