A recent study found symptoms from lumbar spinal stenosis were improved as a result of physical therapy,
These new findings suggest physical therapy could be an effective alternative to surgery for this often age-related impairment, the University of Pittsburgh School of Health Sciences reported. The condition is characterized by a narrow in in the spinal canal that puts pressure on nerve roots, causing pain, weakness and numbness in the back and lower limbs.
To make their findings the researchers looked at 169 patients over the age of 50 who were already scheduled for decompression surgery. The participants were split into two groups: those who would go through with the procedure and those who would instead participate in two standardized, evidence-based physical therapy sessions per week over the course of six weeks.
The findings showed the patient outcomes were just about equal. In both cases the pain had been relieved and full function was restored to the patients' backs, buttocks and legs in equal proportions.
"Probably the biggest point to put across to physicians, patients and practitioners is: Patients don't exhaust all of their non-surgical options before they consent to surgery. And physical therapy is one of their non-surgical options," said principal investigator Anthony Delitto, chair of the Department of Physical Therapy at Pittsburgh's School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (SHRS), as well as a member of the university's Health Policy Institute (HPI) and a consultant to UPMC.
The findings did not show why some patients respond differently to the treatments than others.
"The idea we had was to really test the two approaches head to head. Both groups improved, and they improved to the same degree. Now, embedded in that, there are patients who did well in surgery, and patients who failed in surgery. There are patients who did well in PT, and there are patients who failed with PT. But when we looked across the board at all of those groups, their success and failure rates were about the same," Delitto said.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
