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Background: Pain drawings are widely used as an assessment of patients' subjective pain in lowback pain patients being considered for surgery. Less work has been done on primary health carepatients. Moreover, the possible correlation between pain drawing modalities and other painassessment methods, such as pain score and functional variables needs to be described. Thus, theobjectives were to describe the course of pain drawings during treatment in primary health carefor low back pain patients.Methods: 160 primary health care outpatients with acute or sub-acute low back pain were studiedduring 10 weeks of a stay active concept versus manual therapy in addition to the stay activeconcept. The patients filled out 3 pain drawings each, at baseline and after 5 and 10 weeks oftreatment. In addition the patients also reported pain and functional variables during the 3measurement periods.Results: The proportion of areas marked, the mean number of areas marked (pain drawing score),mean number of modalities used (area score), and the proportion of patients with pain radiationall decreased during the 10-week treatment period. Most of the improvement occurred during thefirst half of the period. The seven different pain modalities in the pain drawing were correlated topain and functional variables. In case of no radiation some modalities were associated with morepain and disability than others, a finding that grew stronger over time. For patients with painradiation, the modality differences were smaller and inconsistent.Conclusion: Pain modalities are significantly correlated with pain and functional variables. Thereis a shift from painful modalities to less painful ones over time.

OBJECTIVES

To compare the effect of manual therapy in addition to the stay-active concept versus the stay-active concept only in low back pain patients.

STUDY DESIGN

A randomized, controlled trial during 10 weeks.

METHODS

One hundred sixty outpatients with acute or subacute low back pain were recruited from a geographically defined area. They were randomly allocated to a reference group treated with the stay-active concept and, in some cases, muscle stretching and an experimental group receiving manual therapy and, in some cases, steroid injections in addition to the stay-active concept. Pain and disability rating index were used as outcome measures.

RESULTS

At baseline, the experimental group had somewhat more pain, a higher disability rating index, and more herniated disks than the reference group. After 5 and 10 weeks, the experimental group had less pain and a lower disability rating index than the reference group.

CONCLUSIONS

The manual treatment concept used in this study in low back pain patients appears to reduce pain and disability rating better than the traditional stay-active concept.

Objective: To evaluate the health-related quality of life effects of muscle stretching, manual therapy and steroid injections in addition to 'stay active' care in acute or subacute low back pain patients.

Study design: A randomized, controlled trial during 10 weeks with four treatment groups.

Setting: Nine primary health care and one outpatient orthopaedic hospital department.

Subjects: One hundred and sixty patients with acute or subacute low back pain.

Interventions: Ten weeks of 'stay active' care only (group 1), or 'stay active' and muscle stretching (group 2), or 'stay active', muscle stretching and manual therapy (group 3), or 'stay active', muscle stretching, manual therapy and steroid injections (group 4).

Main measures: The Gothenburg Quality of Life instrument subscales Well-being score and Complaint score.

Results: In a multivariate analysis adjusted for possible outcome affecting variables other than the treatment given Well-being score was 68.4 (12.5), 72.1 (12.4), 72,3 (12.4) and 72.7 (12.5) in groups 1-4, respectively (P for trend <0.05). There were significant trends for the well-being components patience (P < 0.005), energy (P < 0.05), mood (P < 0.05) and family situation (P < 0.05). The remaining two components and Complaint score showed a non-significant trend towards improvement.

Conclusion: The effects on health-related quality of life were greater the larger the number of treatment modalities available. The 'stay active' treatment group, with the most restricted number of modalities, had the most modest health-related quality of life improvement, while group 4 with the most generous choice of treatment modalities, had the greatest improvement.