The effectiveness of yoga versus physical therapy in reducing chronic back pain

Abstract

Background: Chronic back pain is a discomfort that is localised at the spinal cord and above the gluteal folds that persists for 12 weeks or more (Burton et al, 2004) in individuals between 30 and 50 years old, (National institute of Neurological Disorders and stroke, 2020), due to body changes through aging, such as Neurological Disorders and Stroke, reduced muscle tone and the fluids content between the vertebrae, causing the spine irritation with muscle sprains or strains. There are various risk factors that are attributed to chronic back pain such as; advanced age, sudden weight gain, Arthritis, Spondylosis, Spinal stenosis, cancer, and Psychological depression and mental disturbance due to poor pain perception, (NHS,2020). Low back pain is ranked the highest cause of disability, (Global Burden of Disease, 2020) including, mood disorders, sleeping disturbances, physical inability and social life and activity withdrawal WMH, 2002-2004). The research question for this project is: Is Yoga more effective, compared to physical therapy in reducing chronic lower back pain in adults? The PICO elements used: (P) Adults over 18years (I) Yoga Therapy (C) Physical Therapy (O) Chronic lower back pain reduction. Methods: Systematic literature search was carried out using various databases which yielded a total of six Randomised Control Trials that met the following inclusion criteria such as, peerreviewed articles, age limited over18 years, publication year since 2009 until 2019, and chronic back pain. Children under 18 years, individual suffering from acute back pain, acute neck pain, studies that did not indicate their design methods and studies not in English were excluded. The CASP appraisal tool for RCTs was used to appraise the six studies selected for this project. Results: The selected studies reported effectiveness of both Yoga and Physical therapy in reducing chronic lower back pain in a short-term basis. However, none of the studies were carried locally. Implications and Recommendations: Further research is needed locally to ascertain the effectiveness of Yoga versus Physical therapy in reducing chronic lower back pain. Long term follow up of these practices are recommended so that evidence-based literature will be available to ascertain their effectiveness in a long term basis.