Each participant engaged in specific chiropractic treatment (spinal manipulation) to address the pain from disc herniation confirmed by an MRI. The pain was assessed and data collected at five points through the course of a year. Information collected included self-report from the patient, as well as other clinically recognized testing measures such as the Oswestry questionnaire, a 10-question tool commonly used by healthcare professionals to help determine both pain intensity and disability. 

Two weeks into chiropractic treatment, almost 70 percent of the participants reported feeling “better” or “much better.” This rate rose to nearly 80 percent one month after treatment began, and again to just over 90 percent three months into the study. Even at the six month and one year marks, approximately 88 percent of the participants still experienced improvement.

Leemann S, Peterson CK, Schmid C, et al. Outcomes of acute and chronic patients with magnetic resonance imaging – confirmed symptomatic lumbar disc herniations receiving high-velocity, low-amplitude, spinal manipulative therapy: a prospective observational cohort study with one-year follow-up. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics 2014;37(3);155-163.