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Immediate effects from manual therapy: much ado about nothing?

PainSci » bibliography » Cook 2011
updated
Tags: treatment, chronic pain, manual therapy, pro, critical thinking, scientific medicine, pain problems

Three pages on PainSci cite Cook 2011: 1. Complete Guide to Frozen Shoulder2. “Windows of Opportunity” in Rehab3. What Works for Chronic Pain?

PainSci commentary on Cook 2011: ?This page is one of thousands in the PainScience.com bibliography. It is not a general article: it is focused on a single scientific paper, and it may provide only just enough context for the summary to make sense. Links to other papers and more general information are provided wherever possible.

This short but technical article makes a simple, important point: we’ve seen a lot of less-than-awesome research showing that essentially any treatment can probably provide statistically significant immediate benefits (because pain is readily modulated by novel sensory input), but “the limited effect size for many … raises concerns about their clinical significance” and “may not provide substantial value during long-term, progressive, clinical decision making.”

What we need to further flesh out is which set of interventions that lead to immediate effects that are designed to define a clinical outcome, actually lead to long-term clinical benefits. What we don’t need is a litany of further studies that assume clinical importance because immediate effects occurred directly after the administration of a manual therapy intervention; we've got that covered.

~ Paul Ingraham

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This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:

PainSci Member Login » Submit your email to unlock member content. If you can’t remember/access your registration email, please contact me. ~ Paul Ingraham, PainSci Publisher