Can Verbal Suggestions Manage Musculoskeletal Pain? A Review

How much of an impact do verbal suggestions have on managing pain? We can’t be entirely sure. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the power of suggestion and pain management. A review ¹, in the journal of Physical Therapy Reviews, was conducted to find some answers. While there is potential in such a field, more research is required to see any clinical significance associated with pain management and verbal suggestions.

What’s the Context?

Numerous studies prove that pain has socioeconomic and health implications. This includes disability and functional limitation. Chronic lumbar pain has been observed to have the greatest prevalence. Low Back Pain or LBP is an economically draining ailment for individuals around the globe. Furthermore, reduction in pain due to surgeries and other LBP treatments isn’t always accompanied by improvement. Due to LBP being multi-faceted (including psychological factors), a person’s psyche has been suggested to help with recovery. So, verbal suggestions might have a role to play in the treatment of LBP.

The Purpose of This Review

The aim of the current review was to describe as well as explore the neurobiological mechanisms associated with verbal suggestions when it came to managing musculoskeletal pain in patients.

The literature search was conducted by two independent reviewers. The databases included were PEDro databases, Medline, Cochrane Library, Lilacs. Systematic reviews, randomized clinical trials, and literature reviews were included in this review.

After the study’s exclusion criteria, a total of 13 studies were involved in the current review. The total included four randomized controlled trials and nine reviews. The current review covered the neurobiology of verbal suggestion, and the effects of verbal suggestion in pain sufferers.

What did the Review Conclude?

The review concluded that there’s potential in positive verbal suggestion to improve the effectiveness of LBP management in patients. The review pointed out that such suggestions could generate hypoalgesia via the placebo effect. However, more research is required to fully determine the clinical significance of verbal suggestions for pain management in patients.