Does an Aerobic Exercise Improve Outcomes in Older Sedentary Nonspecific Low Back Pain Subjects? A Randomized Controlled Study

Abstract

Purpose: To demonstrate that a tailored, supervised aerobic exercise after a general back-school rehabilitation program will improve outcomes for older patients with low back pain more than the general back-school program alone. Method: Twenty-two older patients with chronic nonspecific low back pain were recruited for this study, and they were randomly assigned to a control or an interventional group. Both groups received a standard back-school program, while subjects in the intervention group received an additional 15 minutes of the aerobic training program. The numerical pain rating scale (NPRS) and the Roland-Morris Questionnaire (RMQ) were used to assess pain intensity and disability before and after the 5-week treatment in both the participants' groups. Results: Reduction percentage was found significantly increased in the interventional group when compared with the control group for both the NPRS and the RMQ index (P < .05). Conclusion: An adapted aerobic exercise, together with a standard back-school program, was effective in reducing pain symptoms and disability in low back pain subjects rather than the back-school program alone. This should be used as an advice to practitioners while managing low back pain.

The effectiveness of different aerobic exercises to improve pain intensity and disability in chronic low back pain patients: a systematic review

“…The duration of included studies' intervention was between 4 weeks 45 and 12 months. 46 Among these, eleven studies followed up for short term (<3 months or 12 weeks), 45,[47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56] eleven studies followed up for intermediate-term (3 months to <12 months) 43,44,[46][47][48]52,53,[56][57][58][59] and two studies followed up for long term (≥12 months). 46,55 Studies examined the effectiveness of different types of AE.…”

“…46,55 Studies examined the effectiveness of different types of AE. Eleven studies evaluated the effectiveness of different forms of AE alone [43][44][45][46][47]49,54,[56][57][58] while seven studies examined AE in conjunction with other intervention including stabilization exercise, 47 back school program, 50 rehabilitation program, 51 group exercise class, 52 traditional physiotherapy 55 and home exercise. 48 Table 1.…”

“…As an intervention, ten studies used walking exercise [45][46][47][48][49]51,53,54,58 ; three studies used stationary cycling exercise 45,50,52 ; one study used treadmill running exercise 57 ; one study used both walking and running exercise 43 ; one study used combined treadmill walking, stair climbing and stationary cycling exercise 59 ; one study used walking and jogging exercise with elliptical trainer 56 ; one study used individually designed and supervised aerobic exercise. 55 In this review, we focused on the improvement in pain intensity and functional disability.…”

“…To measure pain intensity, nine studies used the Visual Analogic Scale (VAS), 43,[47][48][49]51,52,55,56,59 six studies used Numerical Pain Rating Scale (NRS), [44][45][46]50,53,58 one study used McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) 57 and one study did not measure pain intensity. 54 Functional disability was evaluated by using Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Index (ODI, 0-100) in eleven studies, [43][44][45]47,49,[52][53][54]56,58,59 Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Index (ODI,10-60) in one study, 51 Roland and Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ) in four studies 46,48,50,57 and Aberdeen Low Back Pain Disability Scale (ALBPS) in one study. 55 Risk of bias and quality assessment of studies Quality assessment of included studies using the PEDro scale is shown in Table 2, which demonstrated that the range of the scores was between 4/10 and 8/10 (mean 6.…”

“…43,44,46,47,49,[52][53][54][55]58,59 Studies that scored the lowest had a lack of concealed allocation, blind assessors, adequate follow-up, and intention-to-treat analysis. 45,51 Effectiveness of different aerobic exercises to improve CLBP Walking alone exercise Bello et al 50 compared walking exercise alone to lumbar stabilization exercise by involving a total of 50 patients who were divided into walking exercise group (WG) and lumbar stabilization exercise group (LSG). WG received walking exercise on the treadmill at an intensity of 65-80% HRR, while LSG received 30 mins of lumbar stabilization exercises following the McGill protocol for eight weeks (three times/week).…”