With the significant part of the global population forced to work from home, the occurrence of lower back pain may increase.

Q: How is a chiropractic adjustment performed?

A: Chiropractic adjustment or manipulation is a manual procedure that utilizes the highly refined skills developed during the doctor of chiropractic’s intensive years of chiropractic education. The chiropractic physician typically uses his or her hands—or an instrument— to manipulate the joints of the body, particularly the spine, in order to restore or enhance joint function.

Chiropractors focus on the entire body and how different bodily systems work with each other. They also use their hands to diagnose and treat people. They use “adjustments” to correct alignment, improve how the body works, and restore health.

Among people seeking back pain relief alternatives, most choose chiropractic treatment. About 22 million Americans visit chiropractors annually. Of these, 7.7 million, or 35%, are seeking relief from back pain from various causes, including accidents, sports injuries, and muscle strains. Other complaints include pain in the neck, arms, and legs, and headaches.

What Is Chiropractic Care?

Lumbar disc degeneration and resulting lower back pain become greater concerns with age and disproportionately affect women over men, likely as a result of decreasing estrogen levels during menopause. A new study demonstrates that vitamin D deficiency, smoking, high body mass index (BMI), and osteoporosis are risk factors for greater back pain.

In a recent study of movement-based interventions, researchers discovered that longer duration and high-dose yoga intervention showed reductions in back pain while tai chi reduced acute lower back pain in males in their 20s. Tai chi also was more effective than stretching for lower back pain in young males. In the general community, tai chi showed greater reductions in pain intensity, bothersomeness of pain symptoms, and pain-related disability than the control intervention.

It’s a pain. About 80 percent of adults in the United States will experience lower back pain at some point. Treating back pain typically involves medication, including opioids, surgery, therapy and self-care options. Efforts to reduce opioid use and increase physically based therapies to reduce pain and increase physical function and safety are crucial.

Worldwide, more than 23 percent of the population suffer from chronic low back pain (CLBP). This makes CLBP the most prevalent chronic pain disorder, associated with immense costs to the health care system. The problems are often attributed to risks at the workplace, but are usually related to physical factors such as incorrect posture or sitting for too long.

Q: How is a chiropractic adjustment performed?

A: Chiropractic adjustment or manipulation is a manual procedure that utilizes the highly refined skills developed during the doctor of chiropractic’s intensive years of chiropractic education. The chiropractic physician typically uses his or her hands—or an instrument— to manipulate the joints of the body, particularly the spine, in order to restore or enhance joint function. This often helps resolve joint inflammation and reduces the patient’s pain. Chiropractic manipulation is a highly controlled procedure that rarely causes discomfort. The chiropractor adapts the procedure to meet the specific needs of each patient. Patients often note positive changes in their symptoms immediately following treatment.

The world’s population is steadily growing older. Along with increased age comes a variety of age-related health problems, and degenerative spine diseases constitute a common health problem in older persons.

Spine surgery can improve quality of life in many patients with damaged or deteriorating spinal components. This is true for older patients as well as for younger ones. But what about patients in the upper range of elderly, those 80 years of age or older? Is spine surgery advisable in this group and what risks does it carry?