Spinal manipulation risks: are lumbar and cervical techniques really dangerous?

Spinal manipulation belongs to the field of manual medicine and medical discipline. As such, it is either, like a normal symptomatic visit, is carried out through:

  • Preliminary visit
  • Diagnosis,
  • Treatment
  • Prevention of functional masculinity, that is, common headache and upper and lower extremities.

Manual medicine, moreover, represents a consolidated and internationally codified medical science and represents an extreme remedy when it is done by experienced hands and in the right ways.

Manipulation and history of spinal manipulation

Vertebral manipulations have a powerful source.

The first vestiges of therapeutic practices related to the column go back to documents of western and western origin.

Already in some texts of Chinese medicine, as well as among the writings of Hippocrates, maneuvers specially designed to treat and solve some diseases of the spine were planned and carried out.

The practice of spinal manipulation, protagonist in Roman times, was considered an important figure also among the manipulative practices of 900.

He became famous in 1913 for Moutin who published for the first time a work in French dedicated to osteopathy.

In the twenties, however, Dr. Robert Lavezzari introduced this discipline for the first time in the field of medicine, but only the 1930s were included in therapeutic practice through fixed and repetitive maneuvers.

What are spinal manipulations?

Vertebral techniques are therapeutic acts for subjects who have physiological limitations and / or vertebral pain even in situations without stress.

These techniques, moreover, are indicated for those subjects who have passed the inflammatory phase, but continue to suffer from stiffness that limit movement.

These techniques are usually used to solve many problems of lumbar and cervical areas such as:

  • Acute and chronic cervicalgie
  • stiff neck
  • Cervicogenetic and neurogenic cephalopods
  • Cervical-brachial neuralgia
  • Diarrhea syndrome
  • Periarthrosis of the shoulder
  • Dorsal back pain and back pain and back pain
  • sciatica
  • Cruralgie
  • Disc releases
  • Many disc hernias and coccigodinie

Spinal manipulation: are there health risks?


Each type of spinal manipulation is characterized by a risk and benefit relationship.

Each massage, in fact, if done in a non-professional manner or without the necessary teaching tools, can be a surprise.

Specifically, however, the problem of the safety of vertebral manipulations is considered a very important element of the analysis, not so much for those who are in the lumbar area but also in cases of manipulation of the cervical region.

The reason is very simple: the cervical region is a very sensitive section and, near the vertebrae of this area, there are many vascular structures that have the task of bringing blood to the brain.

If a massage was performed poorly in this region, it would definitely be a very bad experience for the patient that could have serious consequences.

These prerogatives, as well as the possible consequences, have led scientists to reason about this type of massage and about the risks that could result.

In fact, the risks of spinal manipulation have never been declared dangerous or included among the highly dangerous treatment categories.

In fact, the manipulations have never been supported by alarming data. According to scientific studies, only one in five million applications would be at risk.

Of course, just to make sure that this value, paradoxically, seemed to be too low, several studies were conducted on, as well as assessing the hemodynamic consequences, the change of blood flow within the blood vessels.

Precisely from these investigations arose the clinical evidence of the lack of substantial risks for cervical and lumbar vertebral manipulations.

It has been shown that the stretching of the cervical arteries were not significant unless to a lesser extent the normal actions are carried out usually in daily life, such as the rotation of the head and neck backwards.

Certainties of this type are also derived from the English guidelines that during a recent study, the effectiveness of a medical treatment was compared to the benefits of spinal adjustments, and concluded that the manipulation and treatment with the practice of the spinal cord had effective triple the drugs.

The risks of spinal manipulation and scientific evidence

The scientific evidence on the validity and benefits of the Manual Medicine performed in different historical periods, in the same way, confirmed the non-risk of these treatments.

The progress made during the historical evolution could not guarantee the quality of these techniques.

Already since the war, French and English doctors had combined knowledge of orthopedic and chiropractic techniques, by encrypting the technique and the signs and turning spinal manipulation into a valuable tool that gives great benefits.

The vertebral manipulations are, in fact, carried out in the departments of the hospital and not and have assumed the role of the medical branch duly dictated and taught.

It should be clear, then, how the danger of spinal manipulation does not exist, not always that they are carried out by qualified personnel, so doctors or physiotherapists and correct directions.

As with all other manual therapies, there are no indications and contraindications that the doctor or physiotherapist can know and evaluate after conducting the preliminary visit.

An important aspect to remember is that the physiotherapist can perform vertebral manipulations only in the presence of a medical diagnosis.

What is correct to know and what I would like to demonstrate is that the vertebral, lumbar and cervical manipulations are not painful. Also, as I have tried to make clear in this post, they are types of techniques that, if they are applied in the right way, they won’t contribute to health risks.

The substantial benefits of these techniques, however, I would like to state that they could be learned by the time they are made by professionals who, after the proper medical history, can take effective deductions in order to find the cause of the discomfort.

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