Clark Brian C, Thomas James S, Walkowski Stevan A, Howell John N
Ohio University, OMNI and Department of Biomedical Sciences, 236 Irvine Hall, Athens, OH 45701, USA.
J Am Osteopath Assoc. 2012 Sep;112(9):617-29.
Each year, more than 18 million adults in the United States receive manual therapies, at a total annual out-of-pocket cost of $3.9 billion. Although there is growing evidence supporting the efficacy of manual therapies, little is known about the mechanisms underlying these treatments. This lack of basic knowledge significantly limits the development of rational strategies for the use of these treatments and potentially hinders their acceptance by the wider scientific and health care communities. Many authors have hypothesized that manual therapies act by disrupting the pain-spasm-pain cycle, but relatively little experimental evidence has supported this hypothesis. The authors have tested this hypothesis and summarize their work on the biology of manual therapies.
在美国，每年有超过1800万成年人接受手法治疗，每年自付费用总计达39亿美元。尽管越来越多的证据支持手法治疗的疗效，但对于这些治疗的潜在机制却知之甚少。这种基础知识的匮乏严重限制了合理使用这些治疗方法的策略的发展，并可能阻碍它们被更广泛的科学和医疗保健界所接受。许多作者推测，手法治疗是通过打破疼痛-痉挛-疼痛循环起作用的，但相对较少的实验证据支持这一假设。作者们对这一假设进行了验证，并总结了他们在手法治疗生物学方面的工作。
