Study Finds Naturopathic Care for Chronic Low-Back Pain to be Efficacious, Cost... ( Workplace study shows naturopathic...)

Study Finds Naturopathic Care for Chronic Low-Back Pain to be Efficacious, Cost-Effective

Date:3/12/2008

Workplace study shows naturopathic care resulted in an improvement in

health-related quality of life, lower costs, and reduced absenteeism

BOULDER, Colo., March 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Naturopathic care is more cost-effective than a standardized physiotherapy-education regimen in the treatment of chronic low-back pain, according to a study in the March/April 2008 issue of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, a peer-reviewed medical journal published by InnoVision Health Media.

Workers aged 18 to 65 years with clinical diagnoses of low-back pain of at least 6 weeks' duration were recruited from a warehouse site of a large corporation. Seventy-five participants were randomly assigned to receive 3 months of 30-minute, semi-weekly, onsite naturopathic-care visits (acupuncture, exercise and dietary advice, relaxation training, and a back-care educational booklet) or 3 months of 30-minute, bi-weekly, onsite control-group visits (standardized physiotherapy advice and the back-care educational booklet). All participants were told to continue their pain medications as needed. Participants' use of other adjunctive care (chiropractic care, massage, physiotherapy) was monitored.

Naturopathic-care participants had reduced absenteeism and tended to reduce adjunctive care -- resulting in savings in out-of-pocket costs of $1096 per participant. Conversely, control-group participants had slightly increased absenteeism and tended to increase adjunctive care. The naturopathic-care group experienced a statistically significant (P=.006) increase in quality-of-life years over the study period; the control group did not. Furthermore, naturopathic care resulted in a net reduction of 6.7 absenteeism days. Under the healthcare coverage limits set by the employer and assuming the employer paid the full cost of naturopathic care, the intervention cost $154 per absentee day avoided, compared to employer costs of lost productivity of $172 per day, and had a r
'/>"/>

0

GOOD

Page: 1 2
Related medicine news :

1. New AHIP Study in Health Affairs Challenges Previous Assumptions About Medigaps Impact on Medicare Costs
2. MHA to Release Findings of Independent Long Term Care Member Study
3. Henry Ford Hospital to study effectiveness of a new procedure that may help emphysema suffers
4. Radiologist Leora Lanzkowsky Study Suggests ...
5. Cepheid Comments on Study Regarding MRSA Surveillance Reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association
6. Life Recovery Systems Study of Heart Attack With ThermoSuit(R) System
7. Gender bias may affect care of people with osteoarthritis, study finds
8. Lung damage in babies with congenital heart disease under study
9. The hand cant be fooled, study shows
10. Oregon study raises questions on synthetic progestins
11. PSA Test Losing Diagnostic Value, Study Says

Post Your Comments:

Study Finds Naturopathic Care for Chronic Low-Back Pain to be Efficacious, Cost...( Workplace study shows naturopathic...),Health