Qigong and Exercise Therapy for Low Back Pain in Adults (QEBA)

Charité University Medicine Berlin

Status

Completed

Conditions

Low Back Pain

Treatments

Procedure: qigong

Procedure: exercise therapy

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

QEBA-09

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of qigong for the treatment of low back pain compared to a stabilizing exercise therapy.

Enrollment

127 patients

Sex

All

Ages

20 to 60 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

clinical diagnosis of chronic low back pain since at least 3 months and complaints for a maximum duration of 5 years
low back pain more prominent than other pain in the spine
average pain intensity of the last 7 days more or equal to 40 mm measured by a visual analogue scale (VAS 0 - 100 mm)
intellectual and physical ability to participate in the study
informed consent

Exclusion criteria

low back pain related to malignancy
low back pain due to an accident
inflammatory joint disorders
previous spine surgery
protrusion/prolapse of a spinal disk, spondylolisthesis, with radicular symptomatology
actually doing or planning to do other regular physical exercise during the study with possible positive effects on low back pain - such as swimming, yoga, pilates, tai chi, etc.
planning to do another therapy during the study with possible positive effects in low back pain, such as physiotherapy, acupuncture, massage, spinal manipulation etc.
use of pain drugs for other diseases (> 1x/week)
pregnancy
severe chronic or acute disease interfering with therapy attendance
alcohol or substance abuse
participation in another clinical trial in the last 6 months before study entry