Extrait

Background and study aims: Nearly half of all adults in the UK have had back pain at some point in their lives making it a very common and costly problem. The United Kingdom Office for National Statistics report that three and a half million adults suffer with back pain the entire year. Fourteen to fifteen million GP consultations every year in the UK are due to back pain. Back pain costs the UK approximately £10668 million accounting for 13.5% of all incapacity benefits. Whilst there are many types of treatment for back pain, one that helps everyone has not yet been found. Kinesiology is a relatively new and increasingly popular alternative treatment. It originated in the 1960’s in America from a chiropractic technique and became known as Applied Kinesiology. Applied Kinesiology is practiced by some doctors, dentists and chiropractors. Since then many other types of kinesiology have been developed and the practice has spread to over 50 countries. Kinesiopractic®, otherwise known as Professional Kinesiology Practice (PKP) was developed from Applied Kinesiology in the 1980’s by a New Zealand medical doctor. Many people who have tried PKP for back pain say it helped them. Our goal was to do a study to find out if there was any scientific evidence that PKP could help back pain. Who participated? The participants in our study were men and women aged between 18 – 65 who had been diagnosed by their GP with low back pain. We included people who had chronic low back pain (pain that had lasted for at least 3 months or more) but were otherwise well and not taking any medication except for pain killers. In order to compare the treatments properly we had to make sure that everyone in the trial had a similar type of back pain. To do this we excluded some people from our study for example people who had already had surgery for their back pain, were waiting for surgery or had pain in another part of their back e.g. upper back. What did the study involve? In order to check eligibility for the trial we asked interested people to call us and answer a few questions about their pack pain over the phone. People who appeared to have the type of back pain we were looking for were then invited to the clinic to complete some questionnaires about their back pain. If the questionnaires confirmed they had the right type of back pain we asked people to consent to participating and we then made appointments with them to come for kinesiology treatment. The participants came to the kinesiology centre once a week for 5 weeks to have their kinesiology treatment. They completed some questionnaires each time about how their back pain had been during the previous week which helped us find out if the treatment was helping. Everyone in the study received kinesiology treatment. We wanted to test 2 types of kinesiology for back pain to see which was best. The statistician placed our participants into 3 treatment groups using a process called randomization which is rather like a coin toss. Only the practitioner knew which group each person was in. People received either traditional PKP or another type of kinesiology treatment. The people in the first two groups started their treatment straight away and people in the third group started their treatment a bit later. Seven weeks after kinesiology treatment had finished, people completed a final set of questionnaires by post to help us find out if there were any lasting improvements. What were the possible benefits and risks of participating? The benefits we hoped that everyone would receive from the treatments were less pain, more flexibility, a general feeling of wellness and to be able to do more. There are no serious side effects with kinesiology as it is a very safe treatment and none were reported. Three people in our study felt a bit tired and achy after treatment but this only lasted about 24 hours or less. In complementary medicine these effects are quite common and are thought to indicate that the treatment is helping. Where was the study run from? The study took place in a private kinesiology office in Surrey. When did the study start and how long did it run for? The trial took place during 2008 – 2009 and ran for 12 months Who funded the study? We didn’t receive any funding for the study. Who was the main contact? Dr Susan Eardley [email protected]

Critère d'inclusion

• Chronic and recurrent low back pain

Liens

• isrctn
• ictrp