Low-dose, non-supervised, health insurance initiated exercise for the treatment and prevention of chronic low back pain in employees. Results from a randomized controlled trial

Sven Haufe, Klaus Wiechmann, Lothar Stein, Momme Kück, Andrea Smith, Stefan Meineke, Yvonne Zirkelbach, Samuel Rodriguez Duarte, Michael Drupp and Uwe Tegtbur

PLOS ONE, 2017, vol. 12, issue 6, 1-16

Abstract: Objective: Back pain is a major problem requiring pragmatic interventions, low in costs for health care providers and feasible for individuals to perform. Our objective was to test the effectiveness of a low-dose 5-month exercise intervention with small personnel investment on low back strength and self-perceived pain. Methods: Two hundred twenty-six employees (age: 42.7±10.2 years) from three mid-size companies were randomized to 5-month non-supervised training at home (3 times/week for 20 minutes) or wait-list-control. Health insurance professionals instructed the participants on trunk exercises at the start and then supervised participants once a month. Results: Muscle strength for back extension increased after the 5-month intervention with a significant between-group difference (mean 27.4 Newton [95%CI 2.2; 60.3]) favoring the exercise group (p = 0.035). Low back pain was reduced more in subjects after exercise than control (mean difference –0.74 cm [95%CI –1.17; –0.27], p = 0.002). No between-group differences were observed for back pain related disability and work ability. After stratified analysis only subjects with preexisting chronic low back pain showed a between-group difference (exercise versus controls) after the intervention in their strength for back extension (mean 55.7 Newton [95%CI 2.8; 108.5], p = 0.039), self-perceived pain (mean –1.42 cm [95%CI –2.32; –0.51], p = 0.003) and work ability (mean 2.1 points [95%CI 0.2; 4.0], p = 0.032). Significant between-group differences were not observed in subjects without low back pain: strength for back extension (mean 23.4 Newton [95%CI –11.2; 58.1], p = 0.184), self-perceived pain (mean –0.48 cm [95%CI –0.99; 0.04], p = 0.067) and work ability (mean –0.1 points [95%CI –0.9; 0.9], p = 0.999). An interaction between low back pain subgroups and the study intervention (exercise versus control) was exclusively observed for the work ability index (p = 0.016). Conclusion: In middle-aged employees a low-dose, non-supervised exercise program implemented over 20 weeks improved trunk muscle strength and low back pain, and in those with preexisting chronic low back pain improved work ability.

Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178585 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 78585&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0178585

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0178585

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().