Purpose: Many non-pharmaceutical methods have been proposed for the treatment of non-specific chronic low back pain (NCLBP), including online exercise at home (OEH), hydrotherapy, and physiotherapy approaches that have shown significant effects. Nevertheless, there are ambiguities in choosing the best option. Therefore, the present study was designed to compare these methods.
Methods: This randomized clinical trial included 60 patients with NCLBP (25-45 yrs). After selection, they were randomly divided into three groups (20 patients in each) of OEH (including core stability exercises and education), hydrotherapy, and physiotherapy (including hot pack, ultrasound, and TENS), and then, received interventions for 12 weeks. The Visual Analog Scale (VAS) was used to evaluate pain before and after treatment. The ANOCOVA and paired t-test were used to analyze the data and a significant level of P<0.05.
Results: The results showed that all three treatments used in this study had a significant effect (P<0.05) on reducing the pain intensity of the patients after the intervention. There was no significant difference between the three treatments in reducing pain; however, the OEH method could reduce the pain to a greater extent (32.79%).
Conclusion: Although the present study reaffirms the effectiveness of all three treatment approaches, no significant differences were found in the selection of the best option. However, depending on the patient’s condition, one of these methods can be selected. Therefore, we introduce hydrotherapy, and physiotherapy methods for the elderly, severe pain and disability, and OEH as an available method to save money, and time and, most importantly, prevent the COVID-19.
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● All three treatment approaches are significantly effective in reducing pain.
● OEH, hydrotherapy, and physiotherapy were effective in reducing the VAS score, respectively; however, this difference was not significant.
● Saving economic costs and time as well as ease of execution are the advantages of home exercise over physiotherapy and hydrotherapy.
● OEH is an available and safe option to prevent COVID-19 in patients whit NCLBP.
Plain Language Summary
Physiotherapy and exercise therapy in water and land have always been the most popular and common non-pharmacological strategies for the treatment of non-specific low back pain. The high cost of treatment as well as spending a lot of time going to medical centers for a long time and most importantly the emergence of COVID-19 in the world have created many problems for these patients. These factors have even caused frustration and discouragement for many of these patients from pursuing treatment processes as well as improving low back pain. Therefore, we decided to compare home exercise with online monitoring against the two popular approaches of physiotherapy and hydrotherapy. Our results showed that all three methods are effective and almost equal in reducing pain intensity. However, online exercise at home was more prominent and covered all the problems mentioned above.
Type of Study:
Research |
Subject:
Special Received: 2021/11/16 | Accepted: 2022/02/5 | Published: 2022/01/1