ECU funded research hits 25% of income – so what?

With the creation of the European Centre for Chiropractic Excellence in 2016 the ECU ramped up support for chiropractic research and has backed 13 projects to the tune of 25% of ECU income.  What has been achieved and what is in the pipeline?

Andreas Eklund has completed the project ‘Chiropractic Maintenance care – cost-utility, psychological factors and pain trajectories’. Eklund and his co-investigators conclude that Chiropractic Maintenance Care reduces the number of days of pain within each LBP episode among patients classified as Dysfunctional, by limiting the impact of each new episode, stabilizing the clinical course and increasing the number of pain free weeks.  Patients with a predictable clinical pattern with episodes with high impact on life are good candidates for the MC intervention.

Four  projects are in line for completion in 2020: Francesca Wuytak (Development of a core outcome set for Pelvic Girdle Pain); Jan Hartvigsen (CARL I, the International Chiropractic Research Leadership and Capacity Building Programme); Richard Nicol (Development of an ICF-based assessment schedule for manual medicine) and Lise Vilstrup Holm (The effect of chiropractic treatment on infantile colic.

Six  are scheduled to be completed in 2021: Cecilie Krage Øverås (Pain in the spine and elsewhere); Sidney Rubinstein (Spinal manipulative therapy for acute low-back pain); Petra Schweinhardt (Phenotyping low back pain); Damian Bailey (Relationship between physical activity, low back pain and cognitive impairment) and Andreas Eklund (Development of a clinical stratification instrument to improve cost-effectiveness of Chiropractic Maintenance Care).

Mauritz van Tulder (Back Complaints in Elders (BACE)) has been granted an extension due to COVID-19 and is now expected to complete the project in 2022.

Sarah Thurøe (Growing pains in Danish children) and Jan Hartvigsen (CARL II) are expected to be completed in 2023 as planned.