Relevance Of Back School Therapy In Conservative Management Of Low Back Pain

Back pain appears to be an inevitable accompaniment of the human lifecycle. The scale of theback pain epidemicis alarming and has enormous economic implications. In light of our present knowledge, one of the most effective and economic methods of achieving this would seem to be backcare education administered in a group situation. This method of treatment, often referred to as Back School, is now internationally popular. It is based on available scientific knowledge of the physiology and mechanics of the spinal structures and their relationship to daily activities. Back School, by providing the patient with a better understanding of the problem, aims primarily at helping the patient take responsibility for his or her back pain, while relieving pain and functional disability. This study was carried out on 200 patients of chronic low back pain, attending the OPD of Post Graduate Department of Orthopaedics, Govt. Medical College Jammu for a period of one year to evaluate the relevance of back school therapy program and to compare the effectiveness of back school therapy program with conventional conservative treatment. The patients were randomly allocated to two groups of 100 patients each. The patients in Group A underwent Back school therapy, whereas the patients in Group B received conventional conservative therapy. Assessment was carried out before the treatment and after the treatment at four weeks, three months & six months post treatment. Changes in patientslevel of pain, functional disability, and other related variables were compared in the two groups.The results of all the parameters after Back School Therapy were significantly better than conservative treatment. It was concluded that all chronic low back pain patients would benefit from a program of back care education, such as is offered by the Back School. It was also concluded that Back School therapy program is more effective than conventional conservative treatment in management of patients with chronic low back pain.