Helewa A, Goldsmith CH, Smythe HA, Lee P, Bombardier C, Forwell L; International Society of Technology Assessment in Health Care. Meeting.
Annu Meet Int Soc Technol Assess Health Care Int Soc Technol Assess Health Care Meet. 1997; 13: 116.
University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.
OBJECTIVE: To determine whether abdominal muscle exercises reduce the risk of low back pain. METHODS: We conducted a randomized controlled trial by enrolling 402 university and hospital employees in London, ON, between August 1988 and March 1995. Eligible subjects were between 23 and 57 years of age, with weak abdominal muscles (lower third) and no present low back pain (LBP). They were excluded if they had missed work due to LBP in the past 2 years, if they had surgery for LBP in the past 5 years, or if they were unable to perform an abdominal muscle test due to injury or disease. Eligible subjects were stratified into 8 strata and allocated at random equally to either an experimental group which received a back education program and exercise instruction designed to increase abdominal muscle strength (AMS); or a control group which received the education program alone. Outcomes were the number of LBP episodes, AMS and grip strength (GS), assessed at 0, 6, 12, and 24 months. Analyses included logistic regression, Student's t, and analysis of variance. RESULTS: See table. Results were similar at 6 and 12 months. Adjusting for strata and baseline AMS did not alter the conclusions. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that back education and exercise instruction is similar to back education, as there were no differences in low back pain episodes, abdominal muscle strength and grip strength between experimental and control groups. Further analysis of our data might show whether low compliance with the exercise program was the reason for not detecting an effect.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Abdomen
- Abdominal Muscles
- Absenteeism
- Clinical Trials as Topic
- Exercise
- Exercise Therapy
- London
- Low Back Pain
- Muscles
- Patient Compliance
- rehabilitation
- hsrmtgs
Other ID:
UI: 102233212
From Meeting Abstracts