Effects of active rehabilitation therapy on muscular back strength and subjective pain degree in chronic lower back pain patients.
Hea-Kyung Choi, Hak-Ju Gwon, Seon-Rye Kim and 2 others
PMID 27821917WHAT IT FOUND
An eight-week active core rehabilitation program that included education, stretching and strengthening increased average back strength and reduced average pain scores in the 8 experimental patients, while the 8 control patients' average pain scores did not change.
Key findings
01The experimental group's back strength increased from 133.9 ± 11.84 kg before exercise to 145.59 ± 14.49 kg after exercise (p<0.01).
02The experimental group's VAS pain score fell from 6.63 ± 0.52 before exercise to 5.75 ± 0.46 after exercise (p<0.01).
03The control group's VAS pain score was 5.61 ± 0.52 before exercise and 5.61 ± 0.52 after exercise.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Only eight patients were in each group. The study is very small. The paper does not describe how patients were allocated, whether allocation was concealed, or whether outcome assessors were blinded. The paper does not report dropouts or how missing data were handled. The intervention included rehabilitation therapy, education sessions, and several types of stretching and strengthening. The contribution of any single component cannot be separated. The control group's strength result is confusing. The paper reports a decrease from 133.9 ± 3.8 kg to 133.9 ± 5.8 kg with the same mean before and after. The paper does not state which outcome was pre-registered or primary. It only says it analysed muscular back strength and subjective pain degree. The between-group comparisons are shown as means without p values or confidence intervals in the supplied text. The paper does not report function, disability, relapse, or long-term follow-up outcomes.
Declared interests
The supplied text does not report funding or conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the experimental group's improvement as proof that active rehabilitation works. The study had only eight patients in each group, did not describe randomisation or blinding, and combined education, stretching, and strengthening. The contribution of any one component cannot be separated.