Chronic back pain affects approximately 16 million American adults. A recent study published in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine has raised concerns about the effectiveness of various treatments for lower and chronic back pain.
According to the study, only one out of every 10 treatments was found to be effective in relieving lower back pain. Many treatments were “barely better than a placebo” in terms of pain relief.
Researchers reviewed 301 randomized, controlled trials that included data on 56 non-surgical treatments for adults experiencing acute low back pain or chronic low back pain. The studies compared the treatments to groups receiving placebos.
Effective and ineffective treatments were identified. For acute low back pain, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) showed promise. However, antibiotics, anaesthetics, and paracetamol were deemed “unlikely to be suitable treatment options.”
For chronic low back pain, therapies such as exercise, taping, spinal manipulation, antidepressants, and transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) agonists may be effective, although their effects were small. The researchers noted that stress, sleep quality, fatigue, fear, social situations, nutrition, sickness, and previous history of pain all play a role in how we experience pain.
The findings were “inconclusive” for many treatments due to poor study quality and limited participant numbers. Further high-quality trials are needed to understand the efficacy of treatments and remove uncertainty for patients and clinicians.
Experts emphasize that pain is a complex condition influenced by various factors. Physical therapists recommend multimodal treatments, including multiple interventions tailored to each individual patient’s experience. While surgery may be effective in some cases, it should not be the primary approach and should only be considered when other options have failed.
Source: https://www.foxnews.com/health/just-1-10-back-pain-treatments-work-study-says-what-do-instead