Intensive Patient Education vs Placebo for Low Back Pain
This study 1 published in JAMA (Neurology), randomly selected 202 acute low back pain patients to compare pain education to non-pain education. The results demonstrated not much difference between the groups.
The Methods
Participants engaged with their common physician and in addition to this familiar interaction, each participant was then randomly partitioned into two groups. Each of these groups experienced, in addition to the advice and interaction of their physician, an additional two x hour sessions of either:
Group 1: Normal engagement with doctor PLUS intensive one on one patient education (delivered by clinical psychologist in pain management (M.K.N.) trained) for an additional 2 (1hr) sessions. This patient education was delivered based on Butler’s and Moseley’s work. 2
Group 2: Normal engagement with doctor PLUS placebo patient education (delivered by the same clinical psychologist) for an additional 2 (1hr) sessions. Participants in the placebo patient education group received no information, advice, or education about low back pain from the trial clinician. Participants were encouraged to talk about any topic that they desired.
The Results
Retention rates remained high for both groups at ninety percent. Intensive patient education was not more effective than placebo patient education at reducing pain intensity at the three months. There was a small effect of utilizing intensive at one week and at three months but not at six or twelve months.
Discussion
In this study, patient education was used through a psychological framework model rather than a biomechanical model. It is important to understand that this study does not mean that patient education is ineffective or as effective as a placebo. This patient education angle does not attempt to help patients understand the cause of their pain. This approach is more of a top-down psychological strategy of patient education. Methods to subclassify these acute low back pain patients into specific biomechanical categories and then, offer those patients specific education and movement strategies would be helpful to study as groups within the acute low back pain group. These sub-groups could then be compared to placebo.
At Dynamic Disc Designs, we believe that empowering patients with a greater sense of self-awareness on the probable mechanical cause of the acute low back pain can be helpful in the management. Initially, pain-reducing strategies through movement awareness of painful structures should be prompt and focus on reducing nociceptive inflammation for the patient. Following the acute phase of low back pain, professionals using our dynamic disc models can further promote the physical awareness of specific postures to help prevent the recurrence and avoid a progression of the condition. Our models allow the practitioner to explain patho-anatomy in a patient-friendly way that does not induce fear avoidance behaviours for the long term. They also enable the practitioner to provide a realistic forecast of the temporal biological adaptation process within the degenerative cascade framework of natural ageing with a dynamic 3d model. In other words, our dynamic disc models assist the patient engagement process with the opportunity to bring up anatomy in a non-scary and empowering way. We look forward to more research on this topic.
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