Seniors Who Receive Chiropractic in Publicly Funded Facility Benefit Greatly

The Cambridge University Press published the results of a study on August 8, 2025, in the Canadian Journal on Aging that showed that seniors who got chiropractic care in a publicly funded facility received significant help with musculoskeletal pain issues.

This study specifically looked at seniors who received chiropractic care in public facilities in Canada. The authors of this study explained the purpose of this study by saying, "This study describes the characteristics, clinical management, and patient-reported outcomes of older adults with spinal pain who present for chiropractic care at a publicly funded community health centre [sic] serving marginalized populations."

This study looked at the records of 240 adults who underwent chiropractic care for musculoskeletal pain. The study included 158 middle aged adults between the ages of 45 and 59 years and 82 individuals aged 60 and over. The study reviewed the pain outcomes of the subject in the study to see how effective chiropractic care was for these groups. Pain was rated using a number system with 0 representing no pain and 10 representing the worst pain possible.

The study reports that both age groups saw a significant reduction in the pain experienced at the onset of chiropractic care. The study notes that the average pain level upon starting chiropractic care was in the range of 7 to 10 for those patients with chronic long-term pain. Chiropractic care was able to reduce this pain level on average to between 4 and 6. The study points out that those patients with acute pain experienced an even greater level of pain relief.

The study also revealed that those people who visited chiropractors were less likely to need additional visits to primary medical providers for their pain issues. The authors stated, "Overwhelmingly, both middle-aged (79.1%) and older adults (89.0%) reported that a visit to the chiropractor saved them a subsequent visit to their primary care provider."

One additional finding that the researchers found interesting was that both groups of patients saw relatively the same levels of improvement in their pain improvement from chiropractic care. They commented, "…there were no differences between age groups addressing our objective. Regardless of age, overall adult patients from this study with access to chiropractic care had the opportunity to reach a meaningful reduction in pain in any spinal or extremity region."

In their conclusion the authors wrote, "Older adults with spinal and extremity region pain from a socioeconomically challenged population experienced statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in pain associated with a publicly funded pragmatic course of chiropractic care."