Characteristics and Management of Pregnant Patients From a Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine/Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine Clinic.

Abstract

Context: Osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM) is considered beneficial in the treatment of pregnant women, but few studies have outlined the presenting complaints and diagnoses that warrant consideration and utilization of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) in this population.

Objective: To describe the characteristics of pregnant patients receiving OMM at a neuromusculoskeletal medicine (NMM)/OMM specialty outpatient clinic, for the purpose of identifying patients who would benefit from referral to NMM specialty clinics or to be considered for treatment by DOs in non-NMM specialty clinics.

Methods: Electronic health records were reviewed from a single clinic for a 3-year period from October 2015 through September 2018 for patient encounters involving patients with an International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision code for pregnancy. Data regarding patient demographics, payment methods, presenting complaints, treatment modalities, regions treated, and assessment diagnoses were collected and analyzed.

Results: Records showed 465 clinical encounters with 194 pregnant patients (mean [SD] number of encounters per patient, 2.4 [2.0]). The most common presenting complaints involved the back (371; 55.4%), hip and pelvis (99; 14.8%), neck (62; 9.3%), and head (54; 8.1%). The most common clinical assessments were lumbar and thoracic spine neuromusculoskeletal diagnoses (420; 53.0%). There were 2604 somatic dysfunction assessments documented; lumbar (409; 15.7%) and sacral (396; 15.2%) somatic dysfunction were most commonly assessed. There were 2518 OMT techniques documented, and muscle energy was most frequently used (406; 16.1%).

Conclusions: This data, which documents the most frequent presenting complaints of pregnant patients in an NMM/OMM clinic, may be used by clinicians to better understand the role of OMM as an obstetric adjunctive treatment approach and to identify conditions to investigate in future outcome studies.