Manual Therapy and Exercise Therapy in Patients with Chronic Low Back Pain: a randomised controlled trial with 1 Year Follow-up.📝
60-80% of the western world will have lower back pain at some point in their lives. There is an 80% recovery rate from acute pain in 6-8 weeks, but with chronic pain it has poorer outcomes.
49 patients were randomly assigned manual therapy or exercise therapy and given a 45 minute appointment each week for 8 weeks in total.
The manual therapy groups hands on treatment and exercises were tailored to each patient, with the exercise therapy group having individual exercises tailored to the patient. All groups stressed positive mindset and exercise.
Range of movement, pain intensity, functional disability, general health and return to work was all assessed at 0 and 4 weeks as well as 6 and 12 months.
The results showed that the manual therapy and exercise group was twice as effective at decreasing pain and disability levels whilst also improving subjective general health and increasing spinal range of movement.
In addition, this group was 3 times more effective at return to work than the tailored exercise group in patients with chronic lower back pain. All these improvements were sustained at the 1 year follow up.
