Commentary on an article entitled “an ICF-based assessment schedule to facilitate the assessment and reporting of functioning in manual medicine - low back pain as a case in point” by Selb M, Nicol R, Hartvigsen J, Segerer W, C?té P; ICF manual medicine expert group. Published in Disabil Rehabil. 2021 Dec 17:1-10

摘要

Dear editor With great interest we read the paper by Selb and co-authors who developed a WHO-ICF based core set for low back pain (LBP) to be used by Manual Medicine (ManMed) specialists 1. This group of health professionals typically works in primary care. Whereas we strongly support assessing an LBP patient’s problems in functioning and health in primary care using the ICF, the presentation of their state of art research would require further discussion in order to allow the reader to perceive the main take home messages in an unambiguous way. In our opinion, the definition of “Manual Medicine” is unclear and it remains open what the added value of a Manual Medicine core set (or any other profession specific core set) for LBP compared to the multidisciplinary core set for LBP could be, particularly if used in primary care. We further wonder why muscle tone functions were not included in the ManMed ICF core set for LBP. In their introduction Selb and co-authors define “Manual Medicine" as a non-pharmacological therapy comprising of the two manual therapies “manipulation" and “mobilization" 1. In addition, they put “manual therapy" on an equal footing with “Manual Medicine." Such definition appears misleading as ManMed is clearly more than the two manual therapies mentioned 2,3 on the one hand, and it would disregard the ManMed diagnostic part which aims at detecting reversible, impaired body functions, the foundation for administering manual therapies 4.