Physical Therapy My Not Help Lower Back Pain

They added that patients can be helped by making them understand that they are being treated, and that can have an effect on the way the patients feel.

The previous study, conducted in England, found that while patients who only went through talking therapy felt they would have benefited from physical therapy as well, the researchers did not find a significant difference between groups of patients that had and had not received it.

Julie M. Fritz, Ph.D., P.T., of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and colleagues randomly assigned 220 patients with recent-onset LBP to early physical therapy (n = 108; consisted of 4 physical therapy sessions [manipulation and exercise]), or usual care (n = 112; no additional interventions during the first 4 weeks). But studies haven’t explored the impact of early physical therapy.

Lower back pain can be indicative of other conditions, such as kidney stones or a fracture. At the three-month checkup, those who had received physical therapy had a modestly improved ability to perform daily tasks, such as sitting, standing, walking and lifting things.

The new study results aren’t an indictment of physical therapy.

A new study suggests that low back pain subsides by itself with time, and it has the same benefits as undergoing early physical therapy, which helps only in a few cases and with modest results.

Even though the physical therapy group reported more improvement in disability after three months than the other people in the study, there wasn’t a significant difference between the groups after one year. “But difference between the improvement that comes with time and the improvement that comes with therapy is not a huge difference”.

Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the research addressed the problem of chronic back pain and the various factors that influence it; medical, psychological, and social. It can be useful for someone who needs assistance starting to exercise or staying active while recovering from back pain, Fritz said. If someone is beginning to exercise, physical therapy may accelerate the process somewhat and make the whole experience a bit easier.

And physical therapy won’t be harmful, said Anthony Delitto, professor and chair of physical therapy in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh.

He also advises people to remain active. “People were told to go to bed, and that is clearly something they should not do”, Delitto said. Using analysis of covariance, early physical therapy showed improvement relative to usual care in disability after 3 months (mean ODI score: early physical therapy group, 41.3 [95% CI, 38.7 to 44.0] at baseline to 6.6 [95% CI, 4.7 to 8.5] at 3 months; usual care group, 40.9 [95% CI, 38.6 to 43.1] at baseline to 9.8 [95% CI, 7.9 to 11.7] at 3 months; between-group difference, -3.2 [95% CI, -5.9 to -0.47], P =.02). “If you’re willing to sit it out, you’re likely to get better without it”, he said.