Abstract

Background: Low back pain is a serious medical and social problem. Despite many different research studies, no explicit standard therapy has been found so far.

Material and Methods: The study included 193 adult patients of both genders (86 females, 107 males) with low back pain and pain-induced limited spinal mobility without lumbar spinal stenosis. The controlled, randomized clinical trials were used. Patients were randomly assigned to one of the two groups. Group A (Study group, n=95) was subjected to multiple impulse therapy (MIT) and in group B (Control group, n=98) – Saunders traction device was used. The Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaire, Oswestry Disability Index-ODI were used to observe analgesic efficacy and to the analysis of functional progress.The collected results of the trial groups were presented statistically with the Student t-test for independent samples. In turn, comparing the patients’ efficiency (disability index-ODI), analysis of variance of repeated measurements immediately and 1, 3, and 6 months after the therapy, was used. The study assumed the coefficient of significance α=0.05. The calculations were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0.

Results: Multiple impulse therapy (MIT) produces beneficial analgesic effects in significantly shorter time and improves the functional ability and performance of activities of daily living in the treated patients than in the group of patients treated by Saunders axial traction method.

Conclusions: This randomized clinical trial proves that both applied therapies are useful in the treatment of low back pain. However, MIT therapy produces beneficial analgesic effects in significantly shorter time.

Keywords: Low back pain; Multiple impulse therapy (MIT); Saunders lumbar traction