Detailed guides to painful problems, treatments & more

Satisfaction is not efficacy 

 •  • by Paul Ingraham
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Weekly nuggets of pain science news and insight, usually 100-300 words, with the occasional longer post. The blog is the “director’s commentary” on the core content of PainScience.com: a library of major articles and books about common painful problems and popular treatments. See the blog archives or updates for the whole site.

Rational chiropractor, Preston H. Long, author of a new book, Chiropractic Abuse—A Chiropractor’s Lament, knows Twenty Things Most Chiropractors Won’t Tell You. Number 16 is particularly well-phrased:

16. The fact that patients swear by us does not mean we are actually helping them.

Satisfaction is not the same thing as effectiveness. Many people who believe they have been helped had conditions that would have resolved without treatment. Some have had treatment for dangers that did not exist but were said by the chiropractor to be imminent. Many chiropractors actually take courses on how to trick patients to believe in them.

Repeat after me:

Satisfaction is not the same thing as effectiveness.

Then read the other 19. Then read the book.

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