Pain relief

Osteopathic manipulative therapy may reduce new mothers’ back pain

Osteopathic manipulative therapy can provide relief to women with pregnancy-related low back pain, the JAOA reports.

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Low back pain is a problem for roughly half of childbearing women during or after pregnancy. Could osteopathic manipulative therapy help? A new study on this is The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association (JAOA)’s latest effort to promote international research.

The eight-week randomized controlled trial in Germany divided 80 women into two groups. One group received osteopathic manipulative therapy four times during the trial. Osteopathic manipulative therapy is manipulative care provided by foreign-trained osteopaths. The other group did not receive therapy. At the end of eight weeks, the treatment group had less pain and better functionality, the study found.

“The findings of this study support similar studies conducted in the United States that have shown the benefits of osteopathic manipulative treatment in reducing low back pain,” says Audrey Daniel Lusher, the JAOA’s director. “We need longer study periods to derive more definitive conclusions.”

The JAOA is striving to include more international contributions to educate U.S. scholars on research developments abroad. Last year, the journal’s long-time editor Michael M. Patterson, PhD, assumed a new role as JAOA associate editor for international affairs, in which he will lead efforts to highlight high-quality international work. In January, the JAOA started an international advisory board with members from Russia, England, Spain and Brazil.

2 comments

  1. Al Turner, D.O.

    For at least 30 years, the profession has been trying to change OMT to “TREATMENT” instead of “therapy”. It need not be a major editorial change and certainly does not change the meaning. Yet, you continue to publish articles using OMT as therapy. As a physician, I provide TREATMENT, and I write a prescription for therapy. Insurance companies reference OMTherapy as their reason for considering our services as physical therapy, and limiting reimbursement. When will we, as osteopathic physicians, ever learn to stop “shooting ourselves in the foot.”

    1. Florian Schwerla MSc, D.O.

      I agree with the comment of Al Turner totally. Our original title was: “Osteopathic treatment of women with persistent low back / pelvic girdle pain postpartum. A pragmatic randomized controlled trial”. The argument of the JAOA Editor was: “Because this study was conducted by non-US-trained DOs, the term osteopathic manipulative therapy (OMTh) should be used throughout”. Furthermore we used several times the term “osteopathic treatments”. We were not allowed to use the word “treatment”. The JAOA manuscript editor wrote: “The JAOA differentiates care provided by DO physicians from care provided by DO osteopaths by reserving “treatment” for physicians”. When I look at the definition of Osteopathy by the “International osteopathic alliance (IOA)” I cannot find that there are two different types of Osteopathic medicine in the World. They define very clearly: “Osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) is a core activity for both osteopathic physicians and osteopaths”.
      Florian Schwerla, author of the article

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