Chiropractic maintenance care - what's new? A systematic review of the literature.

Background: Maintenance Care is a traditional chiropractic approach, whereby patients continue treatment after optimum benefit is reached. A review conducted in 1996 concluded that evidence behind this therapeutic strategy was lacking, and a second review from 2008 reached the same conclusion. Since then, a systematic research program in the Nordic countries was undertaken to uncover the definition, indications, prevalence of use and beliefs regarding Maintenance Care to make it possible to investigate its clinical usefulness and cost-effectiveness.

Concurrent validity of lower extremity kinematics and jump characteristics captured in pre-school children by a markerless 3D motion capture system.

Background: Investigations into the possible associations between early in life motor function and later in life musculoskeletal health, will require easily obtainable, valid, and reliable measures of gross motor function and kinematics. Marker-based motion capture systems provide reasonably valid and reliable measures, but recordings are restricted to expensive lab environments. Markerless motion capture systems can provide measures of gross motor function and kinematics outside of lab environments and with minimal interference to the subjects being investigated.

European guidelines on quality criteria for diagnostic radiographic images of the lumbar spine - an intra- and inter-observer reproducibility study.

Background: The Commission of the European Communities has published guidelines to be used as a gold standard for quality assessment of diagnostic radiographic images. Image quality and radiation dose must be monitored and optimally balanced for diagnostic purposes on patients. The objective of the current study was to assess intra- and inter-observer reproducibility in less experienced observers using the proposed European Guidelines on Quality Criteria for Diagnostic Radiographic Images in a quality assessment of lumbar spine radiographs in primary chiropractic practice in Denmark.

Exploratory study for clinical signs of MODIC changes in patients with low-back pain in the Netherlands armed forces.

Background: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is being used extensively in the search for pathoanatomical factors contributing to low back pain (LBP) such as Modic changes (MC). However, it remains unclear whether clinical findings can identify patients with MC. The purpose of this explorative study was to assess the predictive value of six clinical tests and three questionnaires commonly used with patients with low-back pain (LBP) on the presence of Modic changes (MC).