Manual Therapy And Core-Strengthening Exercises Can Effectively Alleviate Chronic Low Back Pain
Low back pain is jarringly common. About one-half of all working Americans will experience symptoms at least once every year, and roughly 31 million are affected by it at any given point in time. So if you consider yourself part of this group, you have plenty of company.
Dealing with low back pain can be troublesome and place a strain on everyday life. Typical movements like bending over to pick something off the ground or twisting your torso when looking to the side might suddenly give you pause and make you less mobile in the process. This is one of the main reasons that low back pain is also one of the leading causes for missed work due to disability.
Fortunately, most cases of low back pain will resolve on their own over a short period of time
Ninety-percent of people with back pain will experience complete resolution, but for about 10% of patients, pain will persist beyond three months, in which case it’s called “chronic” low back pain. When the condition becomes chronic, it often leads to greater disability and has an even stronger impact on one’s quality of life due to the frequency and severity of the pain. In addition, although only a small percentage of patients experience chronic low back pain, it accounts for 80% of the indirect costs because treating it is often more difficult.
Physical therapy, however, is an extremely effective treatment option for low back pain at any stage of its development. When treating chronic low back pain, physical therapists use many of the same principles that are used to treat acute low back pain—which is pain lasting for less than three months—but they place an even greater focus on education about the psychological aspects of pain, which are significant in these cases. Some of the interventions therapists use most frequently for chronic low back pain include manual (hands-on) therapy, stretching exercises, strengthening exercises for the back and core muscles, and education on the nature of chronic pain and how to break out of negative thinking patterns.
Study supports the value of manual therapy and core-strengthening exercises
The benefits of physical therapy for chronic low back pain were highlighted in a recently published study called a randomized-controlled trial, which is considered the gold standard for individual studies. For the study, 148 patients with chronic low back pain were randomly assigned to either cognitive functional therapy or a therapy program focused on core exercises and manual therapy. Cognitive functional therapy is an intervention led by physical therapists that integrates strategies from psychology and neuroscience into a comprehensive treatment regimen. Both interventions lasted for eight weeks, and patients were evaluated periodically for up to one year.
Results showed that one year later, both groups experienced improvements in disability and there was no difference in pain intensity between the two interventions. Therefore, this highlights how core-strengthening exercises and manual therapy are effective for patients with chronic low back pain in the long term.
