Disclosures: Amelia Y. Ni, DO: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest
Objective : Assess effect of OMT compared to placebo on peripheral arterial flow as measured by amplitude change from baseline using photo pulse plethysmogram (PPG) data in hypertensive patients.
Design: Hypertensive patients (n=21) were recruited for this study, and randomly assigned to placebo (n=8) or OMT (n=13) groups. All volunteers were encouraged to return for a follow up session wherein OMT was guaranteed. 39 separate sessions were conducted, with a total of 21 initial sessions and 17 follow up sessions, for 23 OMT sessions altogether.
Setting : Federally Qualified Community Health Center
Participants : Chronic hypertensive patients as diagnosed by 2 separate measurements of >130/80 in greater than a 3 month period.
Interventions: The OMT session consisted of 3 interventions – an occipital-atlantal decompression, a vascular Chapman’s point inhibition, and a mesenteric ganglion inhibition – until the treater deemed the intervention had completed sufficient tissue texture change. In the placebo treatment the treater placed
their hands at the three specified treatment locations and passively held the position for 90 seconds.
Main Outcome Measures: PPG amplitude change from baseline.
Results: The placebo treatments demonstrated a decreasing trend in PPG amplitude percent change from baseline throughout the session, (3.45%), (-5.10%), (-7.52%) and (-13.01% . The OMT treatments demonstrated an increase, indicative of improved peripheral flow, during interventions 1, 2 and 3, (10.76%), (8.00%), and (1.70) respectively. The final rest phase ended with a slight decrease from baseline, (-2.61%) change (p=0.473). The changes between interventions or groups were not statistically significant.
Conclusions: PPG data suggests OMT can increase peripheral vascular flow during OMT compared to placebo. We observed a transient increase during the OMT interventions, suggesting a facilitatory effect of OMT on peripheral blood flow. Further research is needed to determine statistical significane with a larger study population, sustainability of peripheral vascular improvement with OMT, as well as best practices for application in clinical scenarios.
Level of Evidence: Level III
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
Ni AY, Pedapati C, Makin IR, Heath D. Improving Lower Extremity Peripheral Vascular Flow Using Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment (OMT) [abstract]. PM R. 2020; 12(S1)(suppl 1). https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/improving-lower-extremity-peripheral-vascular-flow-using-osteopathic-manipulative-treatment-omt/. Accessed December 4, 2024.« Back to AAPM&R Annual Assembly 2020
PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/improving-lower-extremity-peripheral-vascular-flow-using-osteopathic-manipulative-treatment-omt/