Manual Therapy and Exercise in Low Back Pain

Fundación Universidad Católica de Valencia San Vicente Mártir

Status: Completed

Conditions: Low Back Pain

Treatments: Procedure: Exercise

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04924387

UCV/2019-2020/138

Details and patient eligibility

About

Non-specific low back pain is one of the main causes of disability for health care worldwide. The effectiveness of therapeutic exercise, of kinesio tape and of manual therapy in the treatment of low back pain is evaluated, but not a comparison of these techniques. Moreover, can these techniques be combined?

Full description

Non-specific low back pain is one of the main causes of disability for health care worldwide. Nowadays, the mostly used technique to research low back muscular activity is electromyography.

Among the published studies, the effectiveness of therapeutic exercise, of kinesio tape and of manual therapy in the treatment of low back pain is evaluated, but not a comparison of these techniques.

The main objective that is aimed by this thesis, is the evaluation of muscular activation in the reduction of non-specific low back pain through a 12 weeks procedure programme, which includes therapeutic exercise combined with other treatment techniques, and assessing the psycho-social characteristics of pain.

This study's population will be composed by at least 16 individuals per group, both male and female, with ages among 20 and 80.

Participants will be randomly and blindly divided in three groups of intervention. The three groups will be: the experimental group or EXP Group (all participants subject to therapeutic exercise), the experimental group, which will also be subject to manual therapy (MT Group) and finally, the experimental group, which will also be subject to kinesio tape work (KT Group).

Enrollment: 50 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 20 to 50 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients diagnosed with low back pain.
• Patients who are in Stage 1 of the Oswestry scale.
• Not receiving pharmacological treatment such as anti-inflammatories or corticosteroids
• Be able to understand the exercises and spanish language.

Exclusion criteria

• Having any back surgery.
• Be taking any medication at the time of the study.
• Have a pathology in which exercise is contraindicated (spondylolisthesis, spondylolysis, spondyloarthrosis).
• Be in a state of gestation or if there is the possibility of being.
• Present or have presented some oncological process.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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50 participants in 3 patient groups

Experimental Group (EXP group)

Experimental group

Description:

The experimental group (EXP Group) is going to follow a programme of stabilisation through specific therapeutic exercises of the lumbopelvic centre. Two weekly sessions will be programmed for 12 weeks, making a total of 24 sessions. Each sesión will have a duration of 60 minutes, the first 5 minutes for a warm-up and the last 10 for a cool-down phase of active stretching. All patients will start learning how to activate the abdominal muscles in the first training session. The exercise progression will be adapted according to the capacity of each patient, considering their pain levels. The exercices will be made in 1 to 3 series of among 8 and 15 repetitions and the isometric contractions for 5 to 10 seconds. The rests between series will be of 30 seconds, and between exercies of 2-3 minutes.

Treatment:

Procedure: Exercise

Experimental Group and Manual Therapy (MT Group)

Active Comparator group

Description:

Additionally to the core exercises previously exposed in Group EXP, Group MT will lay on the stretcher first, where the physiotherapist will work on a manual therapy thrust. The patient will receive an impulse technique in lateral decubitus position, with high velocity and low range on both sides.

Treatment:

Procedure: Exercise

Experimental Group and Kinesio Tape (KT Group)

Active Comparator group

Description:

The experimental group plus kinesio tape (KT Group) will go previously through physiotherapy, where a kinesio tape band will be applied (kinesio tape "Nondolens" 5cm x 5cm black color), in Y technique, by applying the KT base in neutral position of the lumbar spine without any tension on the tape.

Treatment:

Procedure: Exercise