Northwestern Health Sciences University (NHSU) in Bloomington, Minn., recently received two $1 million research grants to study the benefits of conservative health care. The grants, awarded by the United States Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, bring the university's total federal funding for research to nearly $5.4 million since 1999.
NHSU is using the latest grant money to fund two three-year clinical trials: one designed to identify effective therapies for treating elderly patients with subacute and chronic low back pain, and to evaluate the best methods for enhancing their health and functional capacity; the other designed to identify effective therapies for, and increase the overall health of, senior patients with neck pain. In each study, participants will be divided into three groups, with each group receiving a different therapeutic intervention: chiropractic manual treatment and home exercise; supervised rehabilitative exercise and home exercise; or exclusive home exercise. The cost-effectiveness of each type of therapy will also be determined.
Roni Evans, DC, MS, director of NHSU's Wolfe-Harris Center for Clinical Studies, where the projects will be conducted, and Gert Bronfort, DC, PhD, director of clinical biomechanics and extramural research, will serve as co-investigators on the latest studies.
"Not only are we going to be studying which treatment is most effective, we will also be studying which is more cost-effective, and which [treatment the] participants feel offers more satisfaction," commented Dr. Evans. "This type of research is really unique."
In 2001, NHSU received nearly $3.4 million in research grants: just under $2 million from HRSA and $1.5 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The HRSA grants funded a study on chronic neck pain and another on chronic low back pain, while the NIH grant established a five-year study on acute neck pain - the largest research endeavor in the university's history. (Drs. Evans and Bronfort were also lead investigators on those projects.) Previous federally funded studies focused on conservative management of a variety of conditions, including chronic sciatica, carpal tunnel syndrome, hypertension, otitis media, migraine and muscle tension headaches, childhood asthma, and infantile colic.
