Walking has enormous benefits for lower back pain, research shows

A new study shows that adults with a history of lower back pain stayed almost twice as long without recurrence of their back pain when they walked regularly. Work appears in The Lancet.

About four million Australians and 800 million people worldwide have low back pain, and it is a leading cause of disability and reduced quality of life. Recurrent episodes of low back pain are also very common, with seven in ten people who recover from an episode experiencing a recurrence within a year.

Current best practice for the management and prevention of back pain suggests the combination of exercise and education. However, some forms of exercise are not accessible or affordable for many people due to their high cost, complexity and need for supervision.

A clinical trial by Macquarie University’s Spinal Pain Research Group looked at whether walking could be an effective, cost-effective and accessible intervention. The study followed 701 adults who had recently recovered from an episode of low back pain, with participants randomly assigned to an individualized walking program and six physiotherapist-led education sessions over six months, or to a control group.

Researchers followed participants for one to three years, depending on when they joined.

The paper’s senior author, Mark Hancock, professor of physiotherapy at Macquarie University, says the findings could have a profound impact on the way lower back pain is treated.

“The intervention group had less activity-limiting pain compared to the control group, and a longer mean time before recurrence, with a median of 208 days compared to 112 days,” says Professor Hancock. “Walking is an inexpensive, widely accessible and simple exercise that almost anyone can do, regardless of geographic location, age or socio-economic status.

“We don’t know exactly why walking is so good for preventing back pain, but it probably involves the combination of gentle oscillatory movements, loading and strengthening the spinal structures and muscles, relaxation and stress relief, and letting go of ‘feeling’.” -good’ endorphins. And of course, we also know that walking has many other health benefits, including cardiovascular health, bone density, healthy weight and improved mental health.

Lead author Dr. Natasha Pocovi says the program not only provided participants with longer pain-free periods, but was also very cost-effective.

“It not only improved people’s quality of life, but it also reduced their need for healthcare support and the amount of time taken off work by about half,” she says.

“The exercise-based interventions to prevent back pain that have been previously investigated are typically group-based and require close clinical supervision and expensive equipment, making them much less accessible to the majority of patients. Our study has shown this to be effective and accessible .” forms of exercise have the potential to be successfully implemented on a much larger scale than other forms of exercise.”

To build on these findings, the team now hopes to investigate how to integrate the preventive approach into routine care for patients experiencing recurrent low back pain.

This content was originally published on The Macquarie University Lighthouse.