Study Spotlight: Effects of Manual Therapy and Exercise Targeting Hips in Patients with Low Back Pain

By: Joel Luedke

I found this one posted from our friends at the Motion Palpation Institute.  We are big believers in mobility work at TAT (see Mobility Monday) and think you can't just treat passively with modalities or just do rehab there has to be a full spectrum of care when addressing pain.  We also think often times we only treat pain as the problem and not the symptom that is being caused by something else (Article: Pain is a Symptom).  This Study Spotlight looks at how back pain can be helped with adding focus to the hips.

What They Did:

A group of 84 subjects with mechanical low back pain were separated into two groups.  One group followed pragmatic rehab for the lumbar spine as has been suggested in the research.  The other group also followed the pragmatic treatment for the lumbar spine but in addition has prescriptive treatment for the bilateral hips.  These hip exercises focused on the gluteal musculature as well as mobilization techniques targeting the hips.  Patients were assessed at baseline, 2 weeks and discharge.

What They Found:

Significant differences in the scales use to measure satisfaction and function were found between the two groups with the group having the added hip work being more satisfied and functional.  This was also seen at discharge from the study.

What It All Means:

Like we mentioned in the introduction we can't just treat the area of pain.  All too often even though there is dysfunction in that area there are also many other things going on that won't allow your body to function how it is meant to.  This study shows that working on strength and mobility of the hips can help stabilize and support your lower back and improve pain to a greater degree than just focusing on the low back. 

Look upstream and downstream and focus on those areas and often times you'll find added relief.  And really, what is it hurting if you are addressing those other areas?

Source Link: Effects of Manual Therapy and Exercise Targeting Hips in Patients with Low Back Pain-A Randomized Controlled Trial