Low back pain remains the most common reason patients seek care from a primary care physician and Physical Therapist. At our Boulder Physical Therapy and Lafayette Physical Therapy clinics we effectively treat patients with low back pain utilizing education, manual therapy, and exercise. Based on our available medical evidence we know low back pain symptoms can be recurrent in nature, but the probability of symptoms returning is reduced if patients remain active with exercise and their home exercise program prescribed by their PT. A new research article describes the effectiveness of another form of exercise on symptoms recurrence rates.
Pocovi and colleagues published their research study on the benefits of a walking program on the recurrence of low back pain symptoms in the journal The Lancet (2024). Authors performed a two armed, randomized controlled trail on 700 Australian adults who had recently recovered from an episode of low back pain. Patients were randomized to either a control group of 6 supervised sessions with a Physical Therapist over a 6 month time period. Sessions were focused on a progressive walking program each day. Patients were then followed for 1-3 years to determine recurrence rates of low back pain. As expected patients who walked consistently had less low back pain symptoms, symptoms frequency, and recurrence rates.
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