Complementary and Alternative Medicine for Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain

This review also found immediate and short-term benefits, although mostly with weak evidence, for the use of SMT in the treatment of chronic neck and low back pain. There was conflicting evidence for the support of massage therapy. Furlan and colleagues, however, found that acupuncture, SMT, and massage treatments were significantly more efficacious than no treatment, placebo, physical therapy, or usual care in reducing pain immediately or at short-term after treatment. ³⁵ Inconsistencies may be related to the methodologic and clinical diversity of RCTs, which limit the extent of quantitative synthesis and complicates result interpretation. ³⁵ Also, better conclusions could be drawn if future studies use head-to-head comparisons of CAM treatments and trials comparing CAM to widely used active treatments that report on all clinically relevant outcomes. ³⁵

Although the relationship between conventional treatment and the world of CAM remains equivocal, review of the evidence suggests acupuncture and SMT may be effective treatment for various chronic painful musculoskeletal conditions. ^35,44,50,51 These CAM modalities are reasonable referral options to supplement conventional therapy for the treatment of chronic musculoskeletal pain when conventional therapy has not yielded satisfactory results.

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The authors report no actual or potential conflicts of interest with regard to this article.

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