The Effect of a Six-Week Structured Physiotherapeutic Modality on theChronic Low Back Pain Sufferers' Activities of Daily Living

Abstract

The objective of this six weeks quasi-experimental study was to determine the effect of a structured physiotherapeutic treatment plan in the management of non-specific chronic low back pain on the sufferers' activities of daily living which served as the principal outcome measure. Ten (10) participants who met the inclusion criteria were purposively recruited for this research, and a one group pretest posttest design was adopted. A treatment protocol involving the combination of fifteen minutes of Infrared Radiation (IR), twenty minutes of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) and ten minutes of Soft Tissue Massage (STM) was used in the management of the condition. Each of the participants received treatment three times a week for six weeks duration and all of them duly completed the study. Data were collected, processed and analyzed descriptively and inferentially. Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test was utilized in testing the null hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. Statistical analysis revealed a significant improvement in the sufferers' activities of daily living, hence, it was concluded in this study that the combination of the above physiotherapeutic modalities (IR, TENS and STM) was effective in the management of chronic nonspecific low back pain using activities of daily living as the major dependent variable.