October 13, 2005 – Treating back pain with acupuncture is believed to be a way to reduce both physician waiting lists and the cost of claims covered by public health insurance systems.
This was suggested by Canadian researchers who presented, at a symposium held in Great Britain, the preliminary results of a study conducted in Calgary, in the Canadian province of Alberta.1.
To reach this conclusion, they first identified 201 people who, in 2000, had consulted an acupuncturist on average 6.7 times to treat their low back pain. These patients were matched to a control group of 804 people suffering from the same discomfort, but who had not been treated with acupuncture. The researchers then analyzed the medical records of each of the subjects over a period of three years.
Thus, they found that from 1999 to 2001, the number of complaints attributable to low back pain fell by 49% among people who used acupuncture. In comparison, this decrease was 2.4% in the other patients.
In addition, they observed that the use of acupuncture would reduce the average cost of a doctor’s visit by 37%, from $ 25.40 to $ 16.00, from 1999 to 2001. In addition to To be more expensive, the cost of visits by other patients decreased by only 0.8%, from $ 74.00 to $ 73.40 during the same period.
Of note, the study authors also measured the impact of acupuncture on the number of visits to the chiropractor. This increased from 5.6 to 3.7 visits on average in the subjects of the acupuncture group, while it remained practically the same (7.4 to 7.3) in the other patients.
Joined by the Canadian Institute of Natural and Integrative Medicine (CINIM) in Calgary, study lead author Sabine Moritz said the results should be interpreted with caution. “The socio-economic status of the subjects as well as the prerequisites for their back pain were not taken into account in our study,” she said. His team is also working to collect this data.
Martin LaSalle – PasseportSanté.net
1. Moritz S, Quan H, Liu MF, Rickhi B, Li B, Xu TJ, Paccagnan P, Acupuncture for lower back pain and health resource use, Focus on Alternative and Complementary Medicine, September 2005, Vol. 10, Supplement (1), 39. The results were presented as part of 12e Annual Symposium on Complementary Health Care, held September 19-21, 2005 in Exeter, England. The summary is not yet available on the Internet.
