The study is a mechanistic randomized controlled trials on the effects of chiropractic spinal manipulative therapy on patients with chronic low back pain. 100 chronic low back pain patients will be randomly allocated to receive 12 sessions over 4 weeks of spinal manipulative therapy or placebo spinal manipulation. The main objective is to identify variables related to a central sensitization or nociplastic pain phenotype can help predict the response to spinal manipulation. Additionally, changes in these variables during the treatment period will be used to identify potential pain mechanisms involved in pain relief by spinal manipulation. An additional group of 50 healthy volunteers will be used to measure the same variables and their evolution during 4 weeks in a healthy control population. Response to treatment will be measured according to changes in pain intensity and disability.
This is a mechanistic randomized controlled trial on the effects of chiropractic spinal manipulative therapy on patients with chronic low back pain. It is designed as a mechanistic trial, in which the main objective is to identify which variables related to central sensitization can help predict the response to spinal manipulation, and the evolution of which of these variables can help explain clinical changes in chronic low back pain patients receiving spinal manipulative therapy.